In September 2019, the GITA Consortium met in Bielefeld, the City that according to an international conspiracy theory started by a former student at the University of Bielefeld does not exist. The purpose of the meeting was to consolidate institutional and the National Association plans. It was preceded by a two-day workshop led by FHM on university-enterprise collaboration which took the consortium to FHM co-working spaces as well as the Dr Oetker world and included presentations from locally based international company Semalytix. The meeting was hosted by Professor Volker Wittberg, FHM Pro-Chancellor for Research and Development at FHM and his team who are also overseeing quality management within the GITA project. The meeting was hosted just a few weeks after the City of Bielefeld offered a reward of 1 million euros to whomever managed to prove that Bielefeld did indeed not exist – a ploy masterminded by one of the most influential entrepreneurial cities in Germany where many long-established brands consolidating their international presence still keep their own outlets. The meeting provided insights into the history of the city trading with Indonesia, and the link between SME development and destination branding dominated notably by the world famous Dr Oetker custard and related artefacts.
