Light in Leipzig

It is a cliché, but true nevertheless: if you want to know what is going on in a city, talk to a taxi driver.

I had a fascinating chat earlier this week with a driver in Leipzig who was in his mid-40s. He had taken over the family business from his father more than 20 years ago.

"As a private business, we were tolerated under the old East German system," he told me on our way to the airport. "We didn't get any support, and it was incredibly difficult to get spare parts, but we were more or less left in peace."

I asked him what it was like 20 years ago when the Berlin Wall fell. "It was a party," he replied. "Suddenly, we could do all these things that had been unimaginable, such as travel to the US or Spain. It wasn't about going to the West to buy bananas. It was about the freedom to travel and do things, whether or not you actually did them."

The taxi driver was clear that German reunification — and, in particular, the introduction of a common currency — was a positive development, even though some of his friends "couldn't cope with it at all".

"It's amazing to see what has happened in the city in recent years," he continued. Unemployment, although still high by national standards, has fallen steadily to around 13 per cent.

Further signs of Leipzig's dynamism came on Monday evening at the 10th "Elevator Pitch Night for Central Germany". An elevator pitch is a short presentation that gets its name from the time you have with your boss in an elevator. Before the door opens again, you have to sell your idea to him or her.

At the event on Monday, 15 business people — all but one German-speaking — each had to sell their business ideas in English in less than three minutes to a jury, of which I was a member.

The event, which was attended by over 200 members of the local business community, is the brainchild of James Parsons, the British director of ICC Sprachinstitut, a language school in Leipzig. As last year, Business Spotlight was a media partner for the event.

The jury's award for the best presentation went to Sven Kreyenhop, whose company, Clipworker, edits your private videos, for example from weddings. The public's favourite was Oliver Löffler, manager of The Scuttles, a Dire Straits tribute band that later played at the event.

Finally, the jury decided that Ralf Mades had the best business idea with his dynamic street lighting, which adjusts to the number of cars on the road, going out completely when there is no traffic. My taxi driver would no doubt find these lights interesting if they are introduced in Leipzig.