Interview with BTU Alumna Dr. Jadranka Halilović (Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen)

Jadranka studied and earned her doctorate at BTU and now works as a project manager at COLab, a subproject of Startup Revier EAST, the participatory workshop in Startblock B2 for anyone who wants to turn their ideas into reality. She is also a co-founder of Wurzelwerk Lausitz e.V., which aims to establish a free school.

Hello Jadranka, how did you decide to study at the BTU and to which people would you recommend such an interdisciplinary course of study?
When I finished my high school diploma, I had legal problems as a refugee from Bosnia-Herzegovina to start an apprenticeship or to study at a university. However, since I wanted to further my education, I nevertheless started studying at the BTU. I decided to study industrial engineering because I found this mixture of business administration and technology exciting. Then came the shock in the first semester. I received a deportation notice and was to be expelled from the country. After a long struggle and a little time out, my residence status was clarified and I was able to continue studying regularly, which I was really happy about! And regarding the recommendation for studies, I can of course only speak for myself. There are people who are simply specialists in their field. I'm more broadly interested and can get excited about a lot of things, so I was already quite well off in my industrial engineering studies.

You also completed your doctorate at the BTU in the field of business administration, in particular organization and corporate management. How did that come about, what was your doctoral topic, and what did you learn that helps you now in project management?
Actually, I got into my topic out of pure curiosity. Around 2012, I noticed that people in my circle of friends were increasingly quitting their secure jobs to go on a world trip or make a complete career change. So I asked myself - why is this happening? Is this a generational issue, a peculiarity of Generation Y, perhaps unique to Germany? With this question I simply went to Prof. Hipp's office hours, because there at the chair I had taken some courses in my studies on ABWL and personnel management. As a result, she offered me a position and I started my doctoral thesis. During the doctoral period, I got to know myself very well, above all. How can I organize myself best? How do I create space for myself? I also enjoyed teaching incredibly much and I designed a module, which focuses on interdisciplinary and social skills and in fact it is also this module, which we have taken up again in COLab and Startup Revier EAST as part of an interdisciplinary module. I am very happy about that!

What exactly is the COLab and who are the offers primarily intended for?
COLab is a place of making! We are a structural change project and equipped with the latest technologies with which we can create and test. In addition to our low-threshold hands-on area, we have five high-tech workshops where, for example, you can produce small batches as part of a start-up idea, whether made of wood, plastic or metal. But further education and training are also planned and we are already organizing many workshops. Actually, the best thing to do is to drop in and see for yourself! Every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., we open our doors to anyone interested as part of our open.COLab.day. What I personally like about COLab is that it is open to all people in our region, whether they are students, entrepreneurs, technology maniacs or schoolchildren. Our mission is to teach as many people as possible new skills. To empower and strengthen them and thus also to increase the attractiveness of the location.

What exactly are your tasks as a project manager at COLab and what is your day-to-day work like?
On an operational level, I am responsible for ensuring that the project runs successfully. In the classic sense, these are management tasks such as project management, responsibility for personnel, or financial planning and controlling. In concrete terms, this means a great deal of coordination, as there is a lot of dynamism in the project and we are currently building and procuring everything from scratch. Fortunately, I'm not doing this alone, but have a great team! We have a diverse range of expertise, which I see as an incredible strength for our project.  

You also have your own part-time founding experience with Wurzelwerk Lausitz e.V. Please tell us more about your intention to found a free school in Lusatia.
I think Cottbus is rather the underdog among the cities. Here you are not overwhelmed by the cultural offers as for example in Berlin. You have to discover them rather detective-like. But Cottbus is the place where I have been the longest in my life so far and therefore I have a special connection to the city. That's also why I think it's nice to create cultural and social alternatives here. With my friend and co-founder Josefine Martha Pritschkoleit, we initiated a core group meeting in the summer of 2019. Quickly enough people joined us to found our association Wurzelwerk Lausitz e.V. for our school. The idea became more and more concrete, so that we submitted the application to the ministry in 2021. We understand our school as a place of learning and living, which puts relationships in the focus of learning, is close to nature and strengthens democratic processes. One of our concerns is to integrate regional companies as role models into the lessons and to learn from the experts, thus also demonstrating the diversity of professions in our region. In such a voluntary project, one actually experiences similar things as in everyday work at the university: fluctuation, reconciliation of project ideas, different financing models, structuring, organization and conflicts. We all learn a lot and are of course very happy when the idea becomes reality and the first children hopefully start school in our school in the school year 2023. If diversity arrives on many cultural and social levels, I also believe that it can encourage even more people to (re)settle in the region. In any case, that would be a nice development!