Building Bridges – Siemens Mobility and the Art of Corporate–Startup Synergy

Reflections from Hyorhin on what happens when industrial legacy meets startup agility — and how collaboration fuels transformation

There’s something exciting about seeing two very different worlds come together — the steady, precise world of big industry meeting the fast, flexible world of startups. At the German Indian Innovation Corridor (GIIC) in Berlin, I felt that energy. Listening to people talk about collaboration, I realized innovation isn’t just about new technology or faster products; it’s about finding ways for people, ideas, and systems to work together and grow.

At the panel “Fusion in Motion: From India to Germany — Smart Cities, Green Dreams, and Real-World Roads” on October 6th, Dr. Şilan Hun, Head of Startup Partnering at Siemens Mobility, spoke with the calm confidence of someone who has spent years balancing two very different worlds — the precision of corporate structure and the speed of startup innovation. She leads Siemens Mobility’s venture client studio, connecting established business units with emerging innovators to turn experimentation into lasting change.

Her words — “make it small, learn, exchange, experiment” — captured something essential about collaboration. In a company as large and technically complex as Siemens, scaling innovation often starts with shrinking the distance between people. Rather than chasing disruption, she spoke about creating an environment where learning itself becomes the system.

Dr. Şilan Hun sharing insights on bridging corporate structure and startup agility at GIIC Berlin — where collaboration sparks real change.

Dr. Şilan Hun shared how Siemens Mobility uses pilot projects not just to test technology, but to test relationships — between teams, ideas, and timelines. Each partnership becomes a feedback loop: prototype, reflect, adapt. That mindset felt surprisingly human for a company of that scale.

As I listened, I thought about how Staex approaches collaboration from a different angle. Staex builds secure orchestration across organizational boundaries, but what makes it special isn’t just the technology — it’s the philosophy behind it. In networks where multiple companies, cities, or infrastructures need to cooperate, Staex doesn’t just connect systems; it defines how they should cooperate.

Its decentralized model ensures that collaboration can happen without hierarchy, where every participant retains control over their part of the system while contributing to a shared outcome. It’s less about command and control — and more about mutual trust encoded into technology.

That, to me, is where Siemens Mobility and Staex quietly meet: in the belief that transformation doesn’t happen by replacing systems, but by helping them speak the same language. One builds frameworks for collaboration between humans and organizations; the other builds protocols for trust between networks and machines. Both, ultimately, are about making large systems more human.

Before GIIC, I used to think innovation meant building new things faster. But listening to Dr. Şilan Hun, I realized it can also mean relearning how to work together — across departments, across companies, even across continents.

As I left the panel, it hit me that innovation is more like a conversation than a race. It’s in the small experiments, the shared learning, and the trust built between teams and technologies. Siemens Mobility, Staex, and others show that progress isn’t just about what we create — it’s about how we create it together. 

Maybe the real measure of change is not speed or scale, but how well we can listen, adapt, and connect worlds that once seemed far apart.

Building Links: Siemens Mobility and the Startup Collaboration

About Hyorhin Lee

I’m Hyorhin Lee, a Korean intern at Staex, exploring how technology and human collaboration evolve together across borders. Through my reflections from Berlin’s tech scene and international events like GIIC, I try to understand not just how innovation works — but how it feels when people, systems, and ideas start to move in rhythm. Every conversation reminds me that innovation isn’t a solo act — it’s a shared process of learning, listening, and building trust along the way.