We Campus: the new Volkswagen digital centre of excellence in Berlin
900 experts to develop added value services for the “Volkswagen We” ecosystem.
Almost 1,000 experts in digital technologies: that’s the impressive total number of experts from Volkswagen and its technology partners who will be brought together in the We Campus in Berlin, the new facility where new added value and mobility service to be integrated in the “We” digital ecosystem will be developed.
The choice of Berlin is not accidental. On the one hand, the German capital is very much at the cutting edge of technology, while on the other the characteristics it shares with all large cities offer ideal conditions to analyse needs and areas of improvement for what concerns urban mobility and, consequently, develop innovative mobility solutions.
The objective of the experts at the We Campus is clear - develop added value services that further improve the customers’ mobility experience through the digital “Volkswagen We” platform. A recent example is the car sharing service WeShare, launched few weeks ago in Berlin.
Alexanderplatz
The We Campus facility is near Alexanderplatz and has been designed to meet the requirements of modern digital development work with a key role given to working methods and the design of the office space with a total area of 15,900 square metres.
Interdisciplinary experts including software engineers, product developers and UX designers will work together directly here. There will also be a direct involvement of technology partner Diconium, as well as subsidiaries UMI Mobility International, Volkswagen Group Services and Elli, simplifying procedures and accelerating the testing of newly developed software and apps.
The "two-pizza" rule
Volkswagen is applying the “two-pizza” rule at the We Campus, that is well known from tech companies. Under this organizational principle, agile teams must be so small that two pizzas would be adequate to feed all team members - suggesting a team size of between eight and ten experts. This is the ideal size for promoting personal information exchange and reaping the benefits of agile working including speed and self-organization without hierarchies.
In addition, as a software development centre, the Campus will play an important role in the new Car.Software unit of the Volkswagen Group and offer itself as a location for other Group brands in areas such as cloud architecture, e-commerce and autonomous driving.
Volkswagen "We"
More than 1.5 million customers are already registered with “Volkswagen We”, a number that is steadily growing. It offers a growing range of mobility-related digital services which can be used in the car or via a smartphone. These include “We Charge” for battery charging of electric cars, “We Park” for locating and paying for parking, “We Deliver” for opening your own car for parcel services and, as above, the full-electric car sharing service “WeShare”.
From 2020, all new models, starting with the full-electric ID.3, are to be connected to the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud. This will make many services available for the first time including over-the-air vehicle updates and on-demand functions which can be enabled in the car.
Source: Volkswagen