The Personal Transformation

While still in his native India, at Munjal University in Gurgaon, Adish completed his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and then worked for an automotive manufacturer for two years. However, an inner voice drove him on: “I knew I was interested in investment banking and start-ups, but I didn’t know much about management.” He became aware of the Technical University of Munich on social media and quickly realized: “If I go to any country, it will be Germany and TUM. I didn’t apply to any other university."

Programming and Presenting

So what belongs together grew together. On the one hand, moving to Heilbronn was easy for Adish Jain: “My home town of Ambala is comparable to Heilbronn, so I fit in quickly.” On the other hand, it took him a while to get used to the German culture. He looks back on his time in Heilbronn with a smile: “It’s a small, modern campus and after a year I knew almost everyone.” His courses prepared him well for his current job. On the one hand, he learnt how to program, but also how to present himself: “Nowadays, you definitely have to be able to show what you want to achieve with your product.” In various internships, including at i2m, and project studies at Dr. Oetker, he learnt these soft skills as well as the hard skills.

Adish’s goal was and is to found his own start-up one day. It is handy to have a start-up incubator on your doorstep with Campus Founders as part of the ecosystem ‘Bildungscampus’. By taking part in the Corporate Campus Challenge, the young graduate entered the world of start-ups. This was a great inspiration for his own start-up: “With ‘Mirror’, we wanted to develop an app in which everyone can virtually try out different clothing styles and thus be supported in their purchasing decisions,” he explains. A project that unfortunately ended quickly: “After six to eight months, we ran out of money and the first start-up failed.”

Friendships That Last

An experience he still would not want to miss: “To be honest, I was always in the start-up lab on campus because I knew most of the people there. It’s not just a place to work, but sometimes also to hang out." Friendships also developed through the activities of the TUM Campus Heilbronn: “We met every week at the ‘Insel-Hotel’ and exchanged our knowledge. We are still well connected today, even though many of my fellow students are now scattered all over Germany."

His personal journey took him to the ‘CarByte’ company in Stuttgart, the state capital of Baden-Württemberg: “As Feature-owner, I’m responsible for ‘connected cars’. A full-time job in Germany is a big responsibility, but I’m quickly getting used to it.” Especially as he had already worked at MHP a Porsche company for a year studies.

The Next Steps

Where does the young man see his future? “If I stay outside India, then of course in Germany, because I really like it here,” says Jain. He still harbors the vision of his own start-up. Until then, the German start-up scene still has some work to do if it wants to retain young talent like Adish Jain: “In Indian culture, the clocks tick a little differently. People are more interested in start-ups. In Germany, it’s not so easy to convince them." Fortunately, interest in start-ups is also growing in this country, and there are still a few years left to reverse the trend and persuade ambitious future founders like Adish Jain to stay.