The German-French friendship - a participant's perspective II

Only some days before the 2017 edition of the German-French Young Leaders Programme, we talked to Julie, a business builder at Deutsche Ventures and co-founder of Keydock based in Berlin. As a Franco-German, Julie will contribute a very personal perspective to the Conference starting on 11 May 2017.

Julie, what motivated you to participate in the GFYL Programme? Simply the concept of a group of young and diverse people spending three intense days together and coming up with new ideas for a stronger Europe is difficult to resist! I also really liked that the event is in English and thus aimed at reaching a new group of people who are not yet involved in German-French relations. What are you expecting from this year’s conference? I would like to meet people who work in different sectors and industries and who are thus confronted with totally different problems than the ones I know. I am interested in working with them and in learning from each other. What are you hoping to take out from the programme? A lot of new inspirations and perspectives. And hopefully even something more concrete: a team with a project and a plan to actually do something together. Why do German-French relations matter? Being Franco-German myself, I am always surprised to see how different the French and the German culture are from each other and how this creates difficulties and misunderstandings when we try to work together. However, being two big countries in the heart of Europe, being able to solve problems together is the only way to make us all stronger.