Bayer Extends Collaboration with Bitkom on Digital Solutions

Bayer AG is extending its partnership with Bitkom, Germany's digital association, and is boosting its support for digital innovation in the areas of health care and agriculture.

As a member of the largest digital association in Germany, Bayer will focus on digital transformation, e-health and digital farming, and will be an active contributor in a variety of forums and initiatives.

Under the brand name xarvio, Bayer currently offers digital farming solutions in over 60 countries - solutions that make farming faster, more precise, more efficient and more sustainable. In the area of health care, Bayer is emphasizing three key elements: excellence in research and development, deploying groundbreaking technologies, and partnerships and open innovation.

In order to actively shape the potential of digitalization, Bayer is relying not only on its involvement with Bitkom, but also on its own open innovation activities and cooperative agreements with startups, universities and digital experts throughout the world.

For example, Bayer is also a founding partner and life science partner of CUBE, the global innovation network headquartered in Berlin. In 2013, Bayer initiated its own crowdfunding program, Grants4Apps, that has gone on to achieve global success. In collaboration with technology partners, Bayer is developing new digital ideas and solutions for the life science business at its LifeScience iHUB in Silicon Valley.

"Bayer is pressing ahead with the digital transformation. We are focusing on expanding the digitalization of all of our external business relationships - especially with our customers, suppliers, partners, and on developing new digital business models and digitalizing all business processes. Our steadily increasing activities in Bitkom represent one aspect of our external engagement," said Daniel Hartert, chief information officer, Bayer AG.

"Digitalization has enormous potential in health care and agriculture. That's why we are pleased to welcome Bayer, the leading life science company in our association, and to tackle the digital issues of the future together," added Dr Bernhard Rohleder, CEO of Bitkom.