Rea Karachiwalla

Rea Karachiwalla completed her Bachelor’s degree at Wittenberg University, Ohio (U.S.A) with a major in Applied Mathematics and a minor in Physics. Later, she completed her Master’s degree (M.Sc) at the European School of Management and Technology, Berlin (Germany), with a focus on Technology and Innovation Management. She wrote her Master Thesis in the context of Open Innovation, more specifically, about how firms can overcome barriers to adopt and implement open innovation practices in their overall innovation strategy.

Rea Karachiwalla has also gained some practical experience in the following organizations:

• Volkswagen India: Purchasing production materials, cost benchmarking, supplier strategy
• Continental AG: Implementation and rollout of a new global system
• United Nations: Evaluation of Industry 4.0 applications in the agriculture industry in Ecuador
• Volkswagen AG: Development of an Open Innovation strategy across the Group

Since September 2018, she has been working at Volkswagen AG as an industrial PhD candidate, focusing her research in the field of Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation.