Events, News and more
Read our latest news and find out about the next event… let’s meet!
The thing that makes CODE awesome is that it constantly offers opportunities to learn and practice different real-life qualities needed in the workplace, especially leadership and entrepreneurship – from projects and presentations to clubs and events.Kunal Kirpalani
July 5 2023: Have you met our new executive director and chancellor, Dr. Reimar Müller-Thum? His extensive experience in education and technology promises to take CODE to new heights. With his background as CEO of Macromedia University of Applied Sciences and Macromedia Academy as well as Galileo Global Education Germany, he will help establish CODE as a leading institution for technology-oriented education.
Reimar Müller-Thum will focus his efforts on further developing CODE’s strategic direction while driving the institution’s growth into new dimensions. Reimar Müller-Thum on his new position: “For me, CODE is one of the most innovative educational initiatives of the last decade and an absolute diamond in the rough. I am excited about what the founding team has built and look forward to contributing my experience to ensure CODE reaches its full potential.”
March 1 2023: Current Vice President Prof. Dr. Peter Ruppel was unanimously elected by the Academic Senate as the new President of CODE, with a four-year term. He thus succeeds Manuel Dolderer, who continues in a leadership role on the team.
Khurram Masood, co-founder of African Leadership University, will serve as chair of the university’s economic advisory board.
The focus of the new presidency is on the university’s internationality and global orientation, as well as on self-directed and project-based learning. In interaction of Prof. Dr. Peter Ruppel’s many years of experience and the expertise of education entrepreneur and strategic consultant Khurram Masood, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN are to be achieved. “In order to not only react to future challenges, but to actively shape the future themselves, the digital pioneers of tomorrow need not only technical skills, but also a variety of other skills, such as social and communication skills, the willingness to self-reflect and resilience,” says Peter Ruppel about the importance of holistic education for CODE students.
December 14 2022: We celebrate a significant milestone: 5 years of CODE! Our university was founded in 2017 with the goal of educating the digital pioneers of tomorrow. Five years later, we can see that it has lived up to this: One in ten students is founding his or her own company. So far, CODE has produced over 55 start-ups, which have created a total of more than 300 jobs. The success stories of the companies are diverse: from FinTechs like tokenstreet to PropTechs like Mietz, to the digital crafts office handly. And new ones are being added regularly.
November 17 2021: Entrepreneurs and founders Verena Pausder and Dr. Diana Knodel have been elected for the second time as part of the university council for the next four years. CODE welcomes Prof. Dr. Stephan Stubner, Rector of the Leipzig Graduate School of Management and founder of “Trivago”, as a new member of the board. CODE co-founder Manuel Dolderer was elected president by the university’s senate for another four years. In 2017, more than 600 students from over 80 countries began studying software engineering, interaction design and product management at the university, and so far CODE has recorded more than 30 spin-offs.
January 13 2022: Stephan Schambach, e-commerce pioneer and founder of Intershop, Demandware and NewStore, supports CODE with an investment worth millions. In addition to him, Dirk Graber (CEO of Mr. Spex) as well as Valentin von Albrecht and Hendrik Hofstadt are participating. The two are students at CODE and sold their startup this year. They invested in CODE through the family office Bool Capital, founded with their third co-founder Leopold Schabel. Like 25 other entrepreneurs in the digital industry, the new investors are convinced of the high value of hands-on training and are keen to support it. The numerous partner companies – including Facebook, Porsche, T-Labs (Telekom) and MetroDigital – serve as a link to the corporate world and provide support with their own topics and practical experience.
April 28 2021: After successfully passing all the procedures needed to become a professor, Florencia Noriega and Fabian Geier were officially appointed as professors. Congratulations!
“I want to take this opportunity to thank the people who supported me throughout this long process of almost a year. As for my everyday work, not many changes. I’m happy to work and be part of the lively, lovely, crazy CODE community.” says Florencia, Professor in Software Engineering, about the appointment. Fabian, Head of STS, says: “It’s funny that the most visible changes in public status so seldomly correlate with actual personal accomplishments. But I promise to make good use of this honour and intimidate people with it whenever possible.”
January 21 2021: SuperChat, is an interaction management platform that was founded last year by two CODE students, Yilmaz Köknar and Mika Hally. In its pre-seed round, this start-up was able to collect half a million euros. Now, Capital 468 fund with ex-Rocket employees Alexander Kudlich and Ludwig Ensthaler and their partner Florian Leibert, Mesophere founder and ex-CEO, are investing 2.8 million euros in SuperChat!
January 20 2021: From January 11th until February 1st, 2021, you can vote for your favorite contestant in the Make It Lean Contest from the Startup Incubator Berlin. Among many great startup ideas, there are three CODE projects. With the CapSol app you can discover authentic memories combined with some music, write down a memory, or add a song. If you’re more into sustainability, there is Susteyn, a young indoor farming company on the mission to accelerate the transition into a sustainable food future. Law students could benefit from Juriverse, a platform for law students where they can prepare for their exams free of charge.
January 12 2021: We kicked off the new year with an IoT Day where we announced a scholarship funded by VBKI and CODE. The scholarship enables project teams to work from MotionLab.Berlin, a hardware Innovation Hub just 100m from CODE. The cooperation with MotionLab gives students access to all the machines that make every tinkerer’s heart beat faster and the opportunity to exchange ideas with other IoT experts. The IoT day began with an inspirational talk by Falco Schuett, chair of the IoT+Network, which CODE cofounded. And at the end of the day, students got the opportunity to join an ideation session with Christina Dicke, Ph.D., Head of User Experience at Bosch.io, from our partner Bosch.
December 17 2020: After a remote semester, we wanted to offer our students an opportunity to connect and show their peers what they’ve been working on. Last week, students assembled 20 topic groups to discuss their projects around diverse topics: learning, productivity, sustainability, information, communication, culture, cities and transportation, society and technology, while the fourth generation presented their individual projects from the orientation semester. An excellent opportunity for all four different generations of CODE students to network around projects and celebrate the end of the semester!
December 21 2020: It’s no secret that the first semester at every university is usually the most exciting and challenging. But when we announced at some point in summer that the fourth generation of CODE students will start their studies remotely, the challenging semester became ever more challenging. We talked with Barb Iverson, orientation semester coordinator, and four CODE students Katerina, Luca, Nicholas, and Thais from the fourth generation to hear their experience. Read more on our blog.
November 2020: We proudly present our new online series, insideCODE! That’s the type of event that you would join if you wanted to know what our students, professors, partners, or team members are working on! We are starting with the first session on November 25, with the topic How indoor farming can help feeding cities in the future with CODE student Simon Heuschkel. The following one will be with CODE’s president, Manuel Dolderer, CODE 2020 – How “Curiosity-Driven Education” became part of “The Pioneer’s Mindset” on December 9.
November 10, 2020: Our Berliner Startup Stipendium accelerator program has just started! The next seven months will help nine teams and 14 participants to work on their early-stage projects and ideas and successfully launch their business. We are happy to say that 70% of the cohort identify as female. Participants will be joining workshops, talks, expert drop-ins, and coaching sessions throughout the upcoming period! The Berliner Startup Stipendium at CODE is funded by the European Social Fund and the State of Berlin in equal parts.
October/November 2020: Bosch plans to be fully carbon-neutral this year. Experts Oliver Hahn and Michel Mittasch from Bosch Climate Solutions gave a talk about founding a sustainable company and how to integrate principles of sustainable development into products. A couple of weeks later, an AI expert from Bosch, Manojkumar Parmar shared his experience in a talk, “Subverting Machine Learning Systems for Fun and Profit: Security Challenges of Tomorrow for AI.” He introduced the fundamental challenges of AI and Security, complete with real-world examples of how the systems we rely on and love are vulnerable to attacks and what he’s doing to change it.
September 28, 2020: We celebrated our third birthday! This year in a different setting, but we didn’t miss the cake! Three years ago, everyone met for the first time, on September 28, 2017. This date marked our first onboarding days. To always remember that moment, that day became a memorable holiday for all community members – CODE Community Day, also known as CODE birthday.
August 31, 2020: Semester start: there’s been a rumor that our first call with all CODE students from all four generations was too much for Zoom! The number of CODE students from all four generations is now 516!
We greeted 181 #fourthdimension CODE students from all over the world! It’s incredible to see so many new faces, although this year with one difference: we are doing everything remotely. We cannot wait to see what the #fourthdimension generation of CODE students is preparing for us (and for the world)!
August 26, 2020: Our President Manuel Dolderer gave a talk at the Step Conference introducing the powerful concept of the pioneer’s mindset and explaining how CODE provides a supportive, encouraging, and challenging working environment.
August 21, 2020: Over the summer months, CODE Catalyst teams and the Launchpad members worked hard in developing their ideas and startups. Eleven CODE Startups took the stage and pitched their startups for the first time. Each startup got the opportunity to join a follow-up interest meeting with investors to gain more in-depth insight into each of the startups. Since we called the event “a graduation” ceremony, selected teams got a little statue to decorate their cupboards.
July, 2020: Before the new generation of CODE students joined CODE, we wanted to warm them up for CODE over the summer. A group of CODE students, Paulina Steffen, Mia McCarthy, and Selma Illig, hosted a set of activities for future students. A 2-month remote program offered the #fourthdimension students the opportunity to meet their peers, meet some current students, and determine a student’s perspective of the provided study programs at CODE. Starting in July, every Wednesday and Friday, we offered one study-program related information Session followed by a social event each Friday.
June 5, 2020: Another Demo Day is behind us! This year, in a completely different setting. Back in January, we started to prepare the 2020 Demo Day. We had many insane ideas. And just as we started to get carried away with our creativity, an entirely unexpected situation happened – a global pandemic. Overnight, our plans shifted. With the new circumstances, we had to reinvent our Demo Day ideas and transfer them into the virtual space. During the Demo Day, our students showed what they have been working on and learning during the semester. Demo Day was also a perfect and opportunity for family, friends, and partners to experience firsthand the diversity of our CODE community. And the result was just great! More than 500 people joined our virtual space on Friday! In case you missed our Virtual Demo Day, don’t worry, everything is available on our Youtube channel. Just sit, relax, and enjoy!
April 23, 2020: We are announcing a structured support program for student entrepreneurs at CODE – Catalyst Launchpad! We believe that many CODE projects could make great companies, and we want to assist them in their entrepreneurial journey. The Launchpad is a three-month program that aims to turn eight CODE projects into companies over the summer break. Meet Flexorigin, Sharinghood, Artie, Handly, HRV Biofeedback, Bon, Lokalfrisch, and Susteyn! These are the teams that were selected by the amazing jury – Anne Kjær Bathel, Feliks Eyser, Eric Weber, Kerstin Buschbeck, Catherine Bischoff, and Patrick Haede! The jury agreed that those teams are ready to take the next step in their startup journey!
April 15, 2020: We were aware that for a while, we can’t welcome people to our campus and invite them to spend a couple of hours exploring the place, but this situation forced us to be creative and find other ways to spend a couple of hours with potential new students. This is why we organized the first remote Open House Day. Just like for any other Open House Day, we invited all interested people to join us and get an introduction to our concept, the study programs, meet students and faculty, just this time – online! It was great to see more than 100 participants joining the call from all around the world.
March, 2020: Two groups of CODE students joined two hackathons, #WirvsVirusHack organised by the German federal government and Hackcorona, a virtual hackathon by Data Natives and Hacking Health. Both teams had 48 hours to work on the solutions for problems related to the Corona crisis. The outcome of the hackathons were two ideas: Corolation and Timeo. The team behind Corolation worked on enabling users to follow the Covid-19 risk areas and check anonymously if they recently visited risk areas, while Timeo wanted to create a community currency that would lead the way to helping each other in a sustainable manner.
March 23, 2020: Peter Ruppel, Software Engineer professor at CODE, writes about his experience with remote teaching and the measures we had to take in order to transition our in-person and project-based learning format into a remote learning community. Peter identified a few key factors for success: communication, tools, feedback collecting, pedagogics and morale. Read more on CODE blog.
March 13, 2020: During the worrying times of the coronavirus, our community goes remote. Like all of us, we’re closely monitoring the rapid spread of the new coronavirus. Even though we have no confirmed cases in our community, we see it as our responsibility to contribute as much as we can to limit the spread of COVID-19. That’s why we decided very early to take action and are now happy to announce that almost all our learning formats take place as usual, but remotely. We’ve changed all steps of the admission process, including the final admission day, to a remote format.
March 7, 2020: With Unicon 2020 hosted at CODE we celebrated love for digital products, all over again! Unicon is made for students by students. Over three days, our students hosted around 100 participants, 5 speeches, 6 workshops, and 1 challenge, aiming to connect students from inspiring universities and diverse backgrounds through tech. Read more on their website.
March 2, 2020: We had visitors from NTNU Gjøvik – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department for Design. Kjell Are Refsvik, Joakim Berg and NTNU student Toini spent three days at CODE, comparing learning concepts, talking with our students, founders, lecturers, and professors, especially from Interaction Design Department. There are some similarities with project-based learning but also some differences. We are hoping to find ways to continue this collaboration.
February 23, 2020: CODE students Emil Sallem, Emily Morgan, Johann Hemmann, Marcel Siegmann, Simon Heuschkel and CODE professor Peter Ruppel won the Tech for Climate Track and making it to the top 5 out of all 84 teams at the Bosch Connected Experience, Europe’s largest IoT Hackathon in February!
Around 700 participants from more than 45 countries participated in the hackathon to tackle a series of challenges (hack track) ranging from mobility to manufacturing, to smart home, tech for climate, insurances, and more.
February 19, 2020: As a part of the partner event series, Martin Thomas, the Vice President and Global Head of Enabling of the Bosch Center for AI, spoke to the CODE students about his role at Bosch. His talk was followed by a Fireside Chat with CODE’s professors, Frank Trollmann, Florencia Noriega, Sebastian Rosengrün, and CODE student Elias Wolf.
February 18, 2020: We’ve teamed up with etventure to tackle the essential questions about The Future of Education. Our co-founder and president, Manuel Dolderer, gave a keynote talk about Education 4.0. and participated in the panel entitled, “What education is best to learn skills for the contemporary workplace?”. In a fruitful conversation with other panelists, Anne Kjær Bathel (Founder of ReDI School of Digital Integration), Catalina Stefanescu-Cuntze (Professor of Management Science at ESMT Berlin), and Rubin Lind (Founder of Skills4School GmbH), the participants shared their perspectives of the future of education and what skills we need to provide the next generation.
January 28 & 29, 2020: Each semester at CODE starts with a two weeks long Project Pre-Phase (PPP). During the PPP week, our tiny stage here at CODE hosted around 76 pitches! Students, partners, and companies pitch their project ideas in the stage announcements. The main goals for the PPP are to learn something new and to find a project that serves the best for your student experience. Students will now continue to work with their teammates to make sure that they have a clear idea of how they will spend the rest of the semester.
January, 2020: During their winter break, CODE students Julia and Berk visited Rwanda Coding Academy (RCA) in the Western District of Rwanda. In October last year, three instructors from Rwanda Coding Academy instructors visited CODE, and this is how the educational exchange between the two schools was established. Berk and Julia were facilitating a two-week program at RCA, teaching students many concepts that we do here at CODE: how to create meaningful products, design methods, pitching skills, etc.
December 6 & 18, 2019: During the EXPO time of the year, it’s the time for both core semester students and orientation semester students to showcase what they’ve been working on to the rest of the community. Both EXPO days are a perfect opportunity to get inspired and amazed by student’s projects. We are looking forward to seeing how all the projects will continue to develop and grow.
December 6, 2019: We announced the expansion in our partner network, welcoming a new partner, Bosch, the leading supplier of technology and services. The partnership aims to foster exchange between industry and students, especially in the field of digital product development. Thanks to the new collaboration, CODE students will be able to work side by side with Bosch experts on real-world problems and projects, and in this way play a part in shaping the future.
December 4, 2019: CODE was awarded a 7-digit sum by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs to build up our startup incubator and to support young entrepreneurs further! We will continue to announce new information about the grant in the upcoming months.
November 25, 2019: We welcomed again over around 50 interested people and potential students at CODE during our Open House Day. After the introduction in the cinema, the three study programs and our partners were introduced and students presented their last projects.
November 20, 2019: Earlier this year, CODE got awarded as “Ausgezeichneter Ort” (Excellent Place). Together with other winners, our chancellor Thomas Bachem met Christian Rickerts, State Secretary of the Senate Administration for Economy, Energy and Public Enterprises. This award placed CODE among the ten winners of the competition „Ausgezeichnete Orte im Land der Ideen 2019“. The motto was ”Digitize. Revolutionize. Motivate. Ideas for Work and Education in Germany and Europe”.
November 11, 2019: Digitization affects us all – that’s easy to say, but what does that mean? In the series “German-Austrian Dialogue” organized by the German Embassy in Vienna, our president Manuel Dolderer spoke about the future of technology, politics, economy, and society. What opportunities and risks do we have to face over the next few years? What should Austria do, what should Germany do, what should Europe do?
October 24, 2019: David Helgason, founder and former CEO of Unity, cross-platform game engine, spent an evening with our students, together with guests from the Popcorn Games team. David shared Unity’s unconventional beginning: from the basement in Copenhagen to Unity as it exists today.
October 24, 2019: Our product management student Tania Boliukh was one of the speakers at this year’s edition of the Ada Lovelace Festival. She shared her experience of learning how to be inclusive in an environment where over 50 languages are spoken.
September 23, 2019: CODE announced the appointment of endowed professorship to Dr. Peter Ruppel to take the position of Professor for Software Engineering, with a specialty in distributed systems, decentralized applications, and data science. The professorship is made possible by T-Labs, Deutsche Telekom’s central research and innovation unit. Welcome to CODE!
August 26, 2019: Today we welcomed our next generation of students at CODE! Today our #thirdparty students just had their first day on campus, growing our community to more than 400 people from over 60 countries.
August 19, 2019: After successfully passing all the procedures needed to become a professor, Adam Roe and Ulrich von Zadow were officially appointed as professors.
Adam Roe joined CODE University of Applied Science as a lecturer in the summer of 2018. He has previously worked in a myriad of fields. Most recently, he was the CTO of Kiron, a social startup dedicated to enabling refugees to access to higher education. Ulrich von Zadow joined CODE in autumn 2018 as a lecturer. Before that, he worked for more than a decade building technology-centered exhibits for museums at the Berlin companies Archimedes Exhibitions and ART+COM – first as a software developer, then as project and team lead. Many congratulations to Prof. Adam Roe and Prof. Ulrich von Zadow!
June 18th, 2019: Manuel Dolderer, CODE’s president went to the “University Industry Innovation Network” Conference in Helsinki and spoke about the future of universities and how the educational system can be improved.
June 12th, 2019: Cooperating with CODE will provide T-Labs with the opportunity to foster new project ideas through a constant exchange with CODE students. The students will have the opportunity to contribute to T-Labs innovation projects in the focus areas blockchain, intelligence, and experience.
June 7th, 2019: This week a group of CODE students participated in the Better Future Lab’s one-week-long pilot project powered by AWS. Together with Deutsche Welle they worked on a convenient way to figure out whether given content on social media platforms is likely trustworthy. The Better Future Lab is a dedicated social impact track for semester-long projects that support the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the UN.
May 14th, 2019: We are thrilled to announce that CODE got awarded as “Ausgezeichneter Ort” (Excellent Place) by Land der Ideen. Considering their annual motto “digitize. revolutionize. motivate. Ideas for Work and Education in Germany and Europe”, CODE shows how pioneering innovations can be created in the field of education through the joy of experimentation, curiosity and the courage to rethink.
Photo: „Deutschland – Land der Ideen / Bernd Brundert“
May 9th, 2019: We partnered up with Porsche Digital Lab at re:publica 2019 to present several CODE student projects. ANYVR presented their virtual reality experience that unifies remote working teams around the world. Another team presented the AR drawing app ‘Shindig’ which puts the community into focus. At the third day, two of our students hosted an introduction coding workshop.
April 30th, 2019: Demo Day at Kino International was a huge day for the CODE community. We saw all the student projects from the spring semester in an exhibition and 5 project teams presented their work on the big stage. Congratulations to all students, professors and the entire CODE team who put in so much passion and effort into their work throughout the semester.
April 15th, 2019: A group of CODE students went to the Odyssey Hackathon, the biggest Blockchain & AI Hackathon in Groningen, Netherlands. Their idea enables users to make more informed decisions by giving them detailed insights and full control over their permissions.
With the project, they won the digital nations and infrastructure track.
April 9th, 2019: We are thrilled to announce our new program ‘Better Future Lab’ together with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This collaboration enables our students and faculty to explore new ways of using digital tools and technology to help address challenges and opportunities in support of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN.
March 13th, 2019: We’re excited to celebrate that CODE is among the 8 finalists out of 90 applications for Stifterverband’s “Innovation Hubs@Campus” competition.vAlso, CODE won the first phase of the EXIST Potentiale competition by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs. We feel really honored by the trust these institutions put into CODE, thank you so much!
February 22nd, 2019: The CODE science club welcomed Claus Beisbart, an expert in the philosophy of science, from the University of Bern. He gave a talked about “Life in Cosmos”, about exobiology, the complicated notion of life and different approaches to definitions of life.
February 12th, 2019: Together with Verband Deutsche startups we invited CTOs from different companies to hear about their career and the students had the chance to talk to each of them individually during a speed networking session.
February 4th, 2019: On Monday we welcomed over 100 interested people and potential students at CODE. The three study programs where introduced and students presented their last projects.
January 24th, 2019: Yesterday Thomas Bachem received a prize for CODE. It was the 1st place for the „Deutschen Exzellenz-Preis 2019“ (German Excellence Prize) in the category education/further education.
Photo: Bernd Roselieb
January 21st, 2019: From the 18th-20th of January unicon, CODE’s student run conference, invited 99 students from Germany and other European universities. They listened to interesting speeches, worked on a small challenge and networked at the after party. You will find more information on their website: unicon.berlin
December 20th, 2018: A group of three CODE students joined the Zalando Hackathon in December and had great success. With their project they won two awards: Swiss Army Knives (the team who solved problems of different departments) and Popular Vote Berlin (the project liked by most of the employees).
November 28th, 2018: Our student Nate signed up for the eBay StartUp Cup in June to see what it means to start an idea. He made it to the final, and won the competition with his SmartSchool idea! As a winner he received $10,000 to help him realise the idea.
October 29, 2018: Our professor for Interaction Design Joana Lemos spent the last days with 180 young innovators working in ocean-tech startups, social enterprises and community driven initiatives at the Sustainable Ocean Alliance.
October 12, 2018: Our Software Engineering students Marie and Dani talked about their experience as students in a project-based university and what project-based learning is all about.
August 27, 2018: In the last week of August, we invited our #nextgen students to the countryside for 3 days. They had the opportunity to meet their fellow students and our lecturers and received all important information to start at CODE. Welcome to CODE!
August 25, 2018: Today we attended the Female Future Force Day and gave a workshop. Our Paula and Adam taught attendants how to control robots through graphical programming.
July 12, 2018: Today we held our first open house day at CODE. Around 80 prospective students, their parents, potential partners and professors came to learn about CODE and to participate in workshops. It was an awesome day and we are already looking forward to the next open house day!
April 26, 2018: This year’s Girls Day was a big success! More than 40 interested girls from schools around Berlin came to the CODE campus and took part in our workshop “Build Your Own App.”
April 23, 2018: Today we finally moved into our new rooms on the fourth floor of Factory Berlin. Construction is still happening in some rooms, but as soon as the campus is totally ready, we will open our house to show you around!
January 9, 2018: Our President Manuel Dolderer spoke at TEDx Heidelberg. He took us on a trip to all the ruptures and challenges that digitisation brings, especially in the context of work and education. Watch his talk here!
March 12, 2018: Some of our students won a prize at the Zalando Hackathon. Congratulations! Our student Moritz said: “It’s such a great opportunity to see a company like Zalando from the inside and work with them for a week.”
January 18, 2018: In 2018, we will attend more than 14 career fairs, including some in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne. For example, we are represented at all the “Traumberuf IT&Technik“ career fairs. Come visit us in one of these cities – we look forward to seeing you!
October 11th, 2018: We are really pleased to have entered into the partnership with Euler Hermes, the largest credit and trade insurer in the world. The partnership is a great addition to our group of partners enabling our students to expand their learning experience to a wider range of industries and more varied fields of expertise.