DGAP-News

German Chancellor Merkel visits the ReDI School of Digital Integration - Seite 2

Klöckner & Co Chairman of the Management Board Gisbert Rühl regards integrating refugees into society as a key aspect of corporate social responsibility for German companies. "Right from the beginning, we were thrilled to see how young people working in the startup scene are ready to lend a hand to their peers from crisis regions. This gives refugees a chance to take control of their lives, while, for their part, ReDI partner companies are able to recruit from a pool of talented developers. It's a genuine win-win situation."

About ReDI:

ReDI School of Digital Integration was founded in 2016 and is a non-profit digital school for tech-interested newcomers applying for asylum in Germany. At ReDI, a combination of Readiness and Digital Integration, we equip our students with laptops, workstations in co-working spaces and access to technical mentors to work in project groups. We offer our students high-quality training and the chance to collaborate with the startup and digital industry. The first classes started with over 40 students and have now increased to 135 students. Most were originally from Syria, but students from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq and Lesotho were also represented. Today, our alumni started internships at companies like Cisco and Klöckner & Co, or moved on to start their own ventures: Let's Integrate, Bureaucrazy and Jasmin Catering.

About Klöckner & Co:

Klöckner & Co is one of the largest producer-independent distributors of steel and metal products and one of the leading steel service center companies worldwide. Based on its distribution and service network of around 190 locations in 13 countries, the Group supplies more than 130,000 customers. In addition to companies in the construction industry as well as machinery and mechanical engineering, Klöckner & Co serves customers in the automotive and chemical industry, in shipbuilding and in fields of household appliances, consumer goods and energy. Currently Klöckner & Co has around 9,100 employees. The Group had sales of around EUR5.7 billion in fiscal 2016.