"Showcase of ideas" goes online - HerZIdee

Whether they're good ideas, crazy notions, grand visions, or small projects close to your heart—they all need a home and people who believe in them. Starting October 1, the online platform “HerZIdee,” available at herzidee.zittau2025.de, will offer all tinkerers and creators a virtual home.

The platform was created through a collaboration between the Saxony5 project team at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences (HSZG) and the Zittau 2025 Capital of Culture Office. The platform is intended to serve as a tool for gathering and showcasing people’s ideas for their hometown and region. It will serve as a showcase for these ideas. Citizens are encouraged to inspire one another, build networks, and find supporters to help bring their ideas to life.

“The university and its members are contributing as discussion partners. We want to offer the city and the villages more than we have in the past, which is why we also want to help ensure that ideas related to science—on both a small and large scale—are discussed and implemented. Think along—get involved.”

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Tobias Zschunke, Prorector for Research at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences

For the process surrounding Zittau’s application to become a Capital of Culture in collaboration with the tri-border region, the platform will facilitate the ongoing process of active citizen participation as a central database of ideas—even beyond the city limits. “From the very beginning, our application has stood out as a trinational project for the future, shaped together with and by the citizens,” said Thomas Zenker, Mayor of Zittau. “The new platform will ensure that no idea is lost in the future, no matter how small, ambitious, or daring it may seem at first. I am very grateful to our university and Saxony5 for their commitment.”

With this initiative, the HSZG underscores its role as a driving force for sustainable growth and social cooperation in the region. It’s straightforward and accessible to many people. Every good idea can and will help to positively advance development in the tri-border region—whether or not the application is successful. The submitted entries will make it clear where the needs and interests of the population lie.

The creation of HerZIdee was funded as part of the “Innovative University” funding initiative by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Joint Science Conference. Day after day, new ideas, new knowledge, and new technologies emerge in the laboratories, workshops, and offices of universities. To ensure that this expertise reaches a wider audience even faster than before, the Saxon Universities of Applied Sciences (HAW) in Dresden, Leipzig, Mittweida, Zittau/Görlitz, and Zwickau have joined forces to form the Saxony5 Transfer Network.