Lufthansa’s logistics division is the first freight airline globally to participate in the new Logistics Tech Accelerator program in cooperation with the U.S. company RocketSpace.

The Silicon Valley business has been helping tech startups and corporate innovation professionals bring the future to market since 2011. An agreement to that effect was recently signed.

“We are not only fully supporting innovation and digitization in our own company, we want to drive our industry forward as a whole,” said Monika Wiederhold, vice president for product management and innovation at Lufthansa Cargo. “We are already offering our customers worldwide innovative e-services. Nonetheless, we see great potential for increased digitization and services in the entire air cargo supply chain. We are keen to explore new ways together with young, highly-qualified experts from the start-up scene.”

“Global corporations like Lufthansa Cargo working hand-in-hand with disruptive startups is a prime example of how an industry can come together to fuel open innovation.”, said Duncan Logan, founder and CEO of RocketSpace. “The Logistics Tech Accelerator will not only create cross-industry collaboration, but also a center of innovation excellence to empower participants to accelerate with purpose and achieve measurable results.”

As a part of the program, Lufthansa Cargo is going to educate startups on the business objectives of the industry and will closely co-operate with selected companies to incubate ideas for a pilot program, resulting in a go-to-market solution. In addition to startups, the Logistics Tech Accelerator will use the model of drawing from the diverse expertise of multiple corporate participants including founding corporate member Kaleido, in addition to Lufthansa Cargo.

RocketSpace has already been working with Lufthansa’s Berlin based Innovation Hub. “We are proud of extending the cooperation to the logistics sector now.”, Wiederhold says.

Logistics-focused startups can apply to the program now through May 12. To learn more about the program, visit: http://info.rocketspace.com/logistics-tech-accelerator.