Entrepreneurship is deeply embedded into CODE’s DNA. We boost and stimulate our students’ entrepreneurial spirit by encouraging them to work in teams and develop their ideas together. Anyone who visits CODE’s campus can see that we are not on the traditional campus where students are bound to remain surrounded by only fellow students, researchers, and professors. On the contrary, our campus is placed inside one of the largest startup campuses in Europe – Factory Berlin.
To strengthen entrepreneurial support for our students, we now have CODE Catalyst. CODE Catalyst is bundling all entrepreneurial support structures under its umbrella and focuses on helping for-profit startups and other entrepreneurial endeavors like non-profits or agencies. Our mission is to strengthen our entrepreneurial culture that springs up promising teams and projects and create the right base and infrastructure for our students to manifest their ideas into reality with Catalyst.
We want to take these projects out of the learning environment, out of this building, and take them into the real world and into Berlin and the Berlin startup ecosystem.Thorge Lindner, Product Management student and Catalyst Strategy & Operation
Infrastructural supportDedicated workspace on the campus.
MentoringWe collaborate with the network of experienced entrepreneurs and connect them with our students.
Domain experts adviseStudents can learn more about product management, software engineering, interaction design, pitching, interpersonal communication, finances, and legal issues.
Continuous exchange of ideasWith like-minded people: fellow founders and incubator experts.
Access to the networkInterest meetings with potential investors and assistance in applying for external funding.
CODE Projects have great potential to impact society if they are brought out of the classroom. Entrepreneurship is in alignment with CODE’s practical learning concept. Many CODE students voice interest in founding their startups and companies.Our long-term goal is to turn 50% of CODE projects into startup with one unicorn in five years. CODE Catalyst aims at becoming the university incubator in Berlin No.1!
Back in 2019, the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology created the funding initiative EXIST-Potentiale to increase the prosperity of the university-based start-up ecosystem.
Our team saw the potential for CODE students that were already founding their own startups and applied to take part in the concept-phase. The application was successful and the concept-phase started in March 2019.
The Launchpad is a structured three-month program that aims to turn CODE projects into companies over the summer break. We believe that CODE projects make great companies and we want to assist them on their entrepreneurial journey.
Over the summer the teams were mentored by experienced founders and industry experts. They’ve had a pitching experience in front of our Catalyst jury, the CODE shareholders and other investors.
To talk more about CODE Catalyst and entrepreneurship at CODE, please reach out to our team:
