e-charging station at the company headquarters in Freiburg

In the future, employees and customers will be able to use the new e-charging station in our parking lot in Schwimmbadstraße. Today was the inauguration and a first vehicle could already be charged. Hybrid vehicles are already part of the small highQ fleet and will replace the two combustion engines still present in the future. The e-charging point has been built in cooperation with the local energy service provider and is now ready for operation.

For more information on how to get to the highQ locations, please visit our homepage.
We also look forward to welcoming you again in person.

Our charging station is supported by funds from the state of Baden-Württemberg within the framework of the state initiative III "Market Growth Electromobility BW" in the volume of 3,640€. highQ would like to thank them very much for this valuable contribution to the establishment of a sustainable mobility offer.

European data infrastructure project GAIA-X

The Freiburg-based IT company highQ Computerlösungen is one of the "Day 1" members of the non-profit organization GAIA-X AISBL, which was founded at the end of January. This is intended to drive forward the development of a European data infrastructure and thus create a data protection-compliant alternative to cloud services from major international providers.

"We've been involved from day one," says a delighted highQ CEO Thomas Hornig. "But we've actually been working with GAIA-X for several years." Until now, the European initiative was officially limited to 22 founding members - large German and French technology companies and research institutions such as the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, EDF, Orange and SAP; the newly established institution is now also open to around 300 other members from Europe, Asia and the USA, including many medium-sized companies like highQ, which are expected to benefit particularly from the GAIA-X infrastructure.

This is because it is primarily small to medium-sized companies that generally cannot afford their own server farms and are therefore dependent on cloud services from major international providers such as Amazon or Google. However, as a ruling by the European Court of Justice last year shows, it can be problematic to transfer personal data to countries outside the European Union if it is not adequately protected against unauthorized access there. According to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), such cases can result in severe penalties of up to four percent of annual sales. For highQ, it was clear even before the court rulings that it was better to store data in secure environments, so the IT administration team led by Martin Jäschke, which looks after and hosts almost 200 customer servers, had already started looking for alternative solutions early on. In order to be able to continue to offer economically viable solutions in this area, highQ hopes that the GAIA-X initiative will lead to concrete measures in the near future.

Data protection-compliant cloud space

A DSGVO-compliant infrastructure would help remedy this situation. "We want to develop a secure cloudspace alternative for European companies," says Thomas Hornig, explaining GAIA-X's goal. The software platform, which Hornig has personally helped to design over the past few years, is intended to enable secure data exchange and guarantee data sovereignty - that is, each user can determine for themselves what happens to their data and who gets access.

As an international, not-for-profit organization, the Brussels-based GAIA-X AISBL is now expected to continue previous developments within the expanded group of participants. "As a Day 1 member, we will continue to be actively involved," underlines highQ CEO Thomas Hornig. The focus of highQ's involvement will be on digital business models in the field of mobility, in which highQ has extensive expertise.

About GAIA-X

GAIA-X is a digital ecosystem that is jointly developed and regulated by its members. The goal of the project is to create a secure and trusted environment for the exchange and storage of data. The resulting infrastructure is intended to serve as a basis for innovative, data-driven business models and enable European companies of all sizes to compete globally. The official sponsor of the project is the international non-profit organization GAIA-X AISBL (Association internationale sans but lucratif), which was founded at the end of January 2021 and involves around 300 other companies from Europe, Asia and the USA in addition to the 22 founding members of the GAIA-X initiative. www.data-infrastructure.eu

Customer satisfaction survey

Every year we want to know from our customers how satisfied they are with us and our products. The suggestions and criticisms collected help us to further improve our products and eliminate potential problems. The evaluation of the last survey from the fall of 2020 has been completed: "In the overall evaluation, we are doing pleasingly well overall, although somewhat lower than in the previous year," reports Josue Schade, Head of Customer Satisfaction at highQ. "But in the product surveys, our most important products received a lot of approval - the absolute customer favorite is abakusBT. And the importance of the highQ MobilitySuite platform is also becoming increasingly apparent."

In 2020, customer feedback was even more extensive than in previous years, as for the first time users were able to rate not only their "main product" but several highQ products. Customers were also asked for their opinions on project management, operations and hosting. "All in all, a very detailed mood picture emerged," says Josue Schade.

However, the annual customer satisfaction survey is only one of several channels through which highQ receives feedback from its customers. "We have built up a comprehensive set of tools for this purpose," explains Josue Schade. These include on-site workshops together with users to "look over their shoulders." (Last year, however, these could only take place online due to the pandemic). There is also a separate format for project customers, the so-called "lessons-learned" workshops. "Here, too, critical words are expressly welcome," emphasizes Schade, who is also available to highQ customers at any time for direct addresses.

In all of these formats, the new central role proves its worth: "The fact that I am not directly involved in project execution in these formats allows me to provide a more neutral setting and a very open exchange," says Schade, explaining his area of responsibility. The results of customer discussions and workshops are then fed into the development, support, project management and sales departments in a targeted manner. Ultimately, he says, it's about hearing the "reality from the customer's point of view". He uses an example to illustrate what valuable information is obtained in this way: "A developer usually only has a function in the product in hand during the development and test phase. The customer, however, has to repeat some process steps in the software many times a day, and thus has a completely different "user experience". This makes it all the more important to stay close to the customer in order to better understand their way of seeing and working," concludes Schade.

The insights gained flow directly back into product development - among other things, via internal product workshops that involve not only the product development managers but also the support and sales departments and quality management. "In the next step, the customers benefit again from the product optimizations derived from this," says Josue Schade and launches an appeal: "Your ideas and suggestions are needed - let's get better and better together!"

Top rating again

Unfortunately, for the protection of our colleagues and employees, we were not able to receive the CrefoZert award in person this year. Nevertheless, we are very proud of this award, which we have now received for the second year in a row.

The Creditreform credit information service checks the creditworthiness of medium-sized companies on the basis of a creditworthiness index, a balance sheet rating and interviews with management. For the calculation, a wide range of information is evaluated, weighted according to its relevance and combined into an overall value (in the form of a three-digit number). Sophisticated mathematical-statistical analysis methods are used. Structural changes in the economic structure as well as default probabilities in individual market segments are taken into account.

With the Creditreform creditworthiness certificate CrefoZert, highQ Computerlösungen is certified that our business conduct is always impeccable and the forecast for the future is very positive. This puts us among the two percent of German companies with an exceptionally good credit rating.

Despite Corona, we had a very successful year thanks to our loyal customers and great new projects both in the area of controlling with our product abakusBT, and with highQ MobilitySuite solutions.

The fruits of this labor should not only benefit highQ, but others as well. Thus, the management donated a significant amount to charitable initiatives and projects in the past 2020 as well.

The Freiburg IT company highQ Computerlösungen is growing and thriving even in Corona times - and is letting others share in this success.

"In the almost 25 years of our existence, we have grown from a two-man start-up to a 60-person company that is successful throughout Germany and Europe," says highQ Managing Director Thomas Hornig. "That's why the idea matured years ago: the fruits of our labour should not only benefit us, but also others. It is our goal to donate a significant amount every year to charitable initiatives and projects in the region and beyond."

In the past year 2020, highQ distributed a total of 25,000 euros (and thus 5,000 euros more than in the previous year), which a total of nine recipients were able to enjoy, including the regional association "Wir helfen Kindern e.V.", which supports disadvantaged children. The focus of support is on the areas of: Children's cancer aid, violence and abuse against children, poverty, education and integration. Other regional campaigns were the "Weihnachtswunsch" (Christmas Wish) of the Badische Zeitung and "Herzenssache" (Matter of the Heart) of the Südwestrundfunk, but also internationally active organisations such as Unicef and SOS Kinderdorf were supported. A new addition is a donation to the Mudita Foundation, in which a highQ employee is actively involved. The organisation works to improve the living conditions of underprivileged and orphaned children in Myanmar so that they too can lead happy and fulfilling lives. One of the focal points of highQ's donations in 2020 was the support of children and students.

In general, the values of responsibility and commitment have a high priority at the Freiburg-based IT company, which develops software for public transport and finance. "Social commitment is important to us," emphasises Christian Disch. "This starts with our employees, continues with our commitment to environmentally friendly mobility and, of course, applies more generally in social and societal terms."

Moreover, this commitment is not entirely altruistic, Thomas Hornig admits, because his company also benefits indirectly from it: "Both our customers and applicants appreciate the fact that we not only have our own advancement in mind, but also think of others and act in a value-oriented way.

For highQ, one thing is certain: as much as possible will be donated again in the current year, and that is also why we are looking forward to many new projects that make this possible.

We are pleased about the nomination of the jury.

The German Sustainability Award is the national award for top achievements in sustainability in business, municipalities and research. With eight competitions, over 800 applicants and 2,000 guests at the events, the prize is the largest of its kind in Europe. The award is presented by the German Sustainability Award Foundation in cooperation with the German government, municipal umbrella organisations, trade associations, civil society organisations and research institutions.

highQ Computerlösungen has been nominated for the German Sustainability Award 2021 with its highQ MobilitySuite. Many report on sustainable mobility solutions, but highQ has already successfully implemented the first solutions in Osnabrück and the Swabian Federation.

In Osnabrück there is a uniform and digital access to the various mobility offers. Customers can use the multimodal mobility platform to enter their route, receive suggestions for routes and means of transport and, of course, be billed at the best price and also directly via the platform.

In the Schwabenbund, the passengers of the two regional transport associations Mobility Company for Local Transport in Allgäu (mona) and Transport Association of Central Swabia (VVM) with a total of 24 participating transport companies were enabled to buy any public transport fare product via a digital sales platform - a web shop or a smartphone app.

highQ has already received several awards for its innovative solutions. We are driven by our vision: to create sustainable everyday mobility for the common good and intelligent use of the infrastructure by changing mobility behavior, avoiding traffic and optimizing it.

Digitization makes it possible to make the best possible use of existing urban infrastructure such as parking garages, public transport or the road network. Congestion and overload can be avoided: by shifting in space (different routes), time (different travel times) and means of transport (car, bike, bus, ride sharing, eScooter, ride-pooling, pedestrians, etc.).

The pressure to act is high overall: large cities with particulate matter alarms and congested inner cities are just as much under pressure as medium-sized rural centres, where the main task is to maintain a nationwide regular service and improve connections from the partly sparsely populated region. Therefore, even medium-sized cities with digitised mobility offers can control commuter traffic and supply logistics. The city can, for example, help to digitise the route to work for employees and thus for local companies.

Cities can quickly benefit from digitization if they network their heterogeneous and often still analog services. Something is happening in this respect: some municipalities are focusing on cycling, others are developing apps for traffic jam communication. However, it would make even more sense to bundle them in one platform. First, to collect concrete data and second, to create incentives for citizens. The bundling of a wide variety of traffic data in the highQ MobilitySuite also makes it possible to use the advantages of artificial intelligence for mobility services. Through traffic data acquisition, learning systems can use mobility forecasts to make a preventive contribution, e.g. to avoid traffic jams, traffic flows can be analysed in real time, the capacity utilisation of public transport can be predicted and thus optimised according to demand.

A USP of a platform solution lies in the mobility data obtained from citizens: This data is collected by the city, stored on secure servers and can be used in accordance with DSGVO (German law on the protection of personal data) or anonymised. On the basis of this data, urban mobility can be improved and networked with existing information.

We are eagerly awaiting the jury's decision and are delighted with the nomination!

highQ is expanding its presence. Since June 1, highQ, with its headquarters in Freiburg, is now also represented in HOLM with a branch office in Frankfurt, in addition to Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

The House of Logistics and Mobility (HOLM) is a great platform for interdisciplinary and application-oriented project work, research, education and training in logistics, mobility and related disciplines. It unites the various disciplines under its roof and is supported in terms of content by the intensive cooperation of business, science and society. That's why we are in the right place.

Together with PRISMA Solutions, highQ im HOLM will open its representative office in Frankfurt. With the new location, we are now even closer to our customers and can use the new premises to further intensify our sales and project support activities in this region.

Dominik Danda, Key Account Manager at highQ, will be responsible for direct contact (after the end of the Corona restrictions) with our customers, as well as the numerous contacts at DB Vertrieb in Frankfurt.

"With the new office, I will now be in contact even faster with all customers and interested parties from the greater Frankfurt area," says Dominik Danda happily. "At the new location we now have the possibility to provide rooms for meetings and to welcome our customers in their own four walls in Frankfurt."

A practical test for automatic code generation

How much time can be saved by automated software creation using a code generator? The Freiburg-based IT companies highQ Computerlösungen and Generative Software have tested this using a practical example and created a first version as a web application from a desktop program in just under seven hours.

The advancing digitalization does not even stop at the digital industry itself: More and more programming tasks are now being performed partially or fully automatically by so-called code generators. This approach, also called model-driven software development, relieves human programmers of routine tasks and reduces the risk of errors. In addition, the development process can be accelerated considerably - Generative Software, developer of the cloud-based development platform Virtual Developer, recently demonstrated how fast it actually works together with its customer highQ in a practical experiment. "We simply wanted to know how much code can be developed in just one working day with our generation logic if the project is completely new territory for the developer", says Marcus Munzert, Managing Director of Generative Software. abakusBT, a proven and mature software from highQ for the controlling of developer loans, was selected for the experiment. It is a desktop application that is used by around 60 Volksbanks and savings banks nationwide. The challenge for Marcus Munzert and his product Virtual Developer: By the end of the day, a first executable version was to be created as a web-based solution. To put this ambitious goal into realistic spheres, the experiment was limited to the pure development of the source code and an application server including an empty database was set up in advance on which the application could be started. The setup for the automated software development was also created to be able to use the corresponding software generator. The JEE generator on the Virtual Developer platform was used to generate code for web applications.
 

In just under seven hours to a fully functional app
The experiment started at 9:45 am. Heinz Rohmer recorded the individual work steps and the times required for this. Christian Disch, highQ's managing director and product manager for abakusBT, stood by as "experiment customer" and showed the masks and input forms that were to be implemented in the first web version in any case. Only three hours later the first version of the new web application saw the light of day, and after further iterations, in which additional input masks, overview pages and links were modeled, generated and adapted, and after the final completion of the navigation, the experiment was successfully completed - after exactly 6 hours and 50 minutes. During this time, over 350 files of source code were generated. At highQ they were impressed by the result: "All the forms I

had pre-selected were implemented in the web application," confirms Christian Disch. Thus, a working prototype with first basic functionality of abakusBT is given, even if numerous extensions would be necessary for the complete web application. "But even these we would surely be able to create in record time thanks to the automatic code generation". Marcus Munzert is also satisfied: "We were able to demonstrate how quickly and effectively the porting of a software to a new platform can be implemented with our tools". If this had been a "real" customer project, developers and users would have benefited equally, emphasizes Munzert: "As a developer, I would have gained a lot of time to be able to concentrate on the creative tasks, and for my customer, the time saved would have brought a significant cost saving". For these reasons, Virtual Developer is used intensively at highQ.
 

About Generative Software

Generative Software GmbH was founded in 2007 by the mathematician Marcus Munzert and the engineer Heinz Rohmer. The central field of activity of the company is the industrialization of software development through intelligent code generation using the cloud-based development environment Virtual Developer. Generative Software is based in Freiburg im Breisgau.  www.virtual-developer.com

highQ gains new talent and strengthens its team in five areas / new offices for the Hamburg branch

The 57 strong highQ team is happy to welcome new employees at the Freiburg location. Since the beginning of June, Oliver Brügner has been part of the mobile app team as a software developer and Kathrin Adler has been working for us as a personnel officer for personnel development and employee management. And we have also been successful in gaining new colleagues for highQ in the areas of sales and project management. Since mid-August we have been delighted with the active support of Raphaela Herrmann in the sales office and Nico Buchmüller, who will be a new member of the TicketOffice team as project manager. In addition, with Insa Räuber, a familiar and popular face for many is back from parental leave and strengthens our marketing activities. The Hamburg branch has moved and has significantly expanded its office space. On September 1, colleagues moved into Hermannstraße 10 and from October 1, branch manager Martin Jäschke will welcome a new colleague in support. However, there are still some vacancies, especially in Berlin, where a project manager and supporter is urgently sought, and in Hamburg, where a project manager is urgently sought.

Photo: Oliver Brügner, Nico Buchmüller, Kathrin Adler, Insa Räuber, Raphaela Herrmann (v.l.n.r.)