Peter Kania has been leading the Wirtschaftsförderung Frankfurt – Frankfurt Economic Development – GmbH for 36 years. He is a member of the Industry Advisory Council of the City of Frankfurt am Main. With his many years of experience, he supported Frankfurt Forward as Senior Advisor. Knowing that innovations today are less and less the result of individual ideas but are increasingly being created in complex networks of customers, research, manufacturing, IT service providers, logistics, design, communication, financial service providers, public funding programs and other players (cross innovation), he sees Frankfurt Forward as a powerful approach to promoting innovation. Cross innovation or open innovation as well as crowd innovation are increasingly gaining importance in the future development of the industry network. This promotes both the local startup process and the economic development of the city.