Wolfgang Gröting is a enthusiastic innovator with a rich experience in the industry for more than 20 years.

Since Oct 2017, Mr. Gröting is heading this Fraunhofer inHaus center, in Duisburg, which is an application center for

1. Smart home
2. Hospital of the future
3. Elderly home for the future and
4. Smart city of the future

Currently, he has got, 10 to 20 startups in his in-Haus Zentrum.

Wolfgang Gröting hopes that the inHaus Centre will become a place for an open exchange of ideas and promote practical innovations. Since October 1, 2017, he has headed the Fraunhofer inHaus Center in Duisburg and is particularly pleased about the cooperation with motivated and creative scientists. Gröting is convinced that their enormous know-how holds enormous potential for innovation.

With the 49-year-old, an experienced engineer and innovation manager has taken over the helm at the inHaus center. Over the past 20 years, Mr. Gröting has held management positions, first at Siemens and later at Philips. Most recently, he headed global innovation management at the Dutch technology group Philips. Here he successfully initialized new business ideas and was responsible for significantly higher project efficiency.

Mr. Gröting now wants to contribute this experience and knowledge in the fields of telecommunications, lighting and the generation of new business models to his work at the inHaus center. In addition, as an engineer he has a good sense for innovation and appreciates the achievements of past pioneering achievements: "I am impressed by the innovative power of people and their inventive spirit. Let's take, for example, the many assistance systems that make life much easier in old age within one's own four walls and sometimes even make it possible in the first place. I am therefore all the more pleased to now be part of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, which, with its approximately 24 thousand employees, has already driven forward many great innovations."

Mr. Gröting sees future focal points of his work in the areas of health, healthy ageing and care, among others. Under his leadership, topics related to Smart home will also play a central role in the inHaus center. He will contribute many fresh ideas from industry to the research work at the Fraunhofer Institute. In addition, his excellent networking skills will enable him to establish direct contact with partners from industry.

Mr. Gröting sees himself as a "bridge builder" when working with colleagues and customers. He says he was very much influenced by the length of time he spent in a Dutch company. He is particularly impressed by the pragmatic way the Dutch people work: "Direct communication across departmental boundaries is a matter of course there, and I practice that as well.

The father of a family has his roots in the down-to-earth Münsterland region, but has lived in Oberhausen for many years and describes himself as a "happy part" of the Ruhr region. Good prerequisites for understanding partners and colleagues alike.

Recently, he was heading the Quellen Reiter event. The Quellen Reiter event aims to support people who want to understand how it is to start an own company, with the support of GFW Duisburg, experience startup managers, they support in bringing the initial ideas to the next level. They will continue the idea of Quellen Reiter in 2020 too, stay in touch to know about the exact date and complete details. The word Quellen Reiter comes from the idea, to be at the weekend at the source for all the information because at this weekend you get the access to research, business and all the experts who can help you to start a business.

InHaus-Zentrum:

The Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center in Duisburg, Germany, is an innovation workshop that is unique in Europe. It carries out application-oriented and close-to-the-market research in the field of intelligent room and building systems. The inHaus-Center bundles the potential from several Fraunhofer Institutes and more than 100 business partners for the cooperative development, testing and implementation of innovative solutions in technology, products and systems for residential and commercial building applications.

Taking good ideas and making a success of them together – that’s how we understand innovation. Through the Fraunhofer-inHaus-Center, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft combines the potential from several Fraunhofer Institutes and around 100 partners from industry. We work together to develop, test and demonstrate new solutions for rooms and buildings, and bring them to market. Examples of inHaus activities range from improving energy efficiency through the use of new materials and automated building services to optimizing the design of office space and hotel rooms, and increasing security and assistance for people in care. Our connection to the marketplace comes in the form of the jointly planned and operated application labs in our two pilot buildings, inHaus1 (for the residential sector) and inHaus2 (for the commercial sector). In addition, we offer consulting services, events, and training and development seminars.