If you walk through the offices of the Cologne IT company Ubirch in the so-called Mediapark, you will inevitably come across a room that doesn't really fit into the picture.

Ubirch boss Stephan Noller has set up what he calls a small “tinkering room” in a former copy room.

A soldering iron and a microscope are on the table, and there are all sorts of screws and electronics in small drawers.

Sometimes, says Noller, he works on sensors in here when he wants to clear his head.

Noller, young at heart, in his mid-fifties, in a black turtleneck sweater, describes himself as a technical and tinkering earth, and anyone who has taken a look into this room will believe him immediately.

Maximilian Sachsen

Editor in Business

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His nature is also reflected elsewhere.

A lighted birch tree in his private front yard, for example, has become somewhat of a celebrity in the neighborhood.

"My wife asked me to take care of the Christmas lights," says Noller.

But that alone was too boring for him, so he also connected the lighting to the Internet and created a Twitter profile for it, called "SterniBirke".

Whenever this profile is mentioned in tweets, the starlight chain either turns on or off.

"Whatever you do," says Noller and laughs.

This SterniBirke gave its name to Noller's then new company: Ubirch, derived from the English word "birch" for birch.

The glowing tree is an example of Noller's passion and the technology with which he wants to earn money: the so-called Internet of Things, i.e. objects networked via the Internet.

These are equipped with chips, sensors, data storage or software systems in order to be able to exchange data with other objects.

The Internet of Things is considered an important future technology for fully automated processes in factories or so-called digital twins.

These are virtual images of machines or entire factories, for example, which use sensors to simulate all ongoing processes in real time.

This is intended to identify when machines will break down, for example, so that they can be serviced beforehand.

This saves expensive repairs later.

Breakthrough Help

With his company Ubirch, founded in 2014, Noller is developing encryption systems for the Internet of Things in order to help the technology achieve a breakthrough in all possible fields of application.

"For the Internet of Things to be successful, it has to be secure, otherwise there is no trust," he says.

Noller explains the advantages and dangers of a networked world using an example: the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley last year.

"The warning was given far too late because the data on the water level flowed into an analog chain where people had to make decisions." Networked sensors could have issued a warning message or activated sirens.

"Instead of four hours until the warning, it could have been four minutes," he says.

At the same time, networking harbors dangers.

"Bringing the Internet into things makes many things more intelligent," says Noller.

But it also makes hackers happy.

Example flood: "If a waterworks that controls a water equalization tank is hacked, we have a problem."