Thought Leadership
The newly founded German University of Digital Science (German UDS) will launch its first MBA and Master’s degree courses on October 1, 2024, for which applications can still be submitted until September 15.
The German UDS has the declared goal of helping to reduce the worldwide shortage of IT specialists with globally oriented education and training. That is why the German UDS is aimed at all learners and teachers worldwide who want to help shape the digital transformation.
This is the vision of computer science professors Mike Friedrichsen and Christoph Meinel. The initiators of the innovative digital university concept expect to receive approval as a state-recognized university in the first quarter of 2025. The private and non-profit university is located in the media city of Babelsberg in Potsdam. This is where the headquarters and the so-called Maschinenhaus, which houses the servers for teaching, are located.
German UDS – the first globally active digital university in Germany
Why does the German UDS call itself the first fully digital university? The Fernuni Hagen is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and is the only distance learning university in Germany to date. Since the coronavirus pandemic at the latest, online lectures have become commonplace for students and lecturers. However, most universities and universities of applied sciences in Germany and abroad still offer face-to-face courses in addition to online lectures. At the German UDS, however, studying and continuing education are one hundred percent digital. In addition, the new university has also positioned itself as an explicitly global educational institution from the outset. Students and lecturers from all over the world can become part of the German UDS, as the entire range of courses, including lectures, tutorials, seminars and examinations, will be offered digitally and exclusively in English.
The target group of the German UDS
The German UDS is aimed at all learners and teachers worldwide who want to help shape the digital transformation. The Global South is of particular importance to the initiators Profs. Drs. Mike Friedrichsen and Christoph Meinel: “We are not thinking exclusively, but emphatically, of people from the Global South for whom studying or further education in the western world is impossible for financial, professional or family reasons. But even in Germany, Europe or other Western countries, not everyone is in a position to study on campus.”
Contributing to reducing the global shortage of IT specialists
The shortage of skilled workers in many areas is steadily increasing both nationally and internationally. In the coming years, Germany in particular will need skilled workers with higher educational qualifications like no other country in Europe. The increasing digitalization of all areas of life requires significantly more IT specialists. According to calculations by the US Korn Ferry Institute, there will be a global shortage of 4.3 million IT experts in the technology sector alone by 2030.
This is precisely where German UDS is positioned: education and training for the digital transformation
The declared aim of the German UDS is to help alleviate the serious global shortage of IT specialists, which is causing digitalization to stall in many countries. “In Germany alone, almost 150,000 jobs cannot currently be filled with IT experts,” says Meinel, referring to the latest findings of the digital association Bitkom.
Artificial intelligence alone will not help to close the skills gap, Friedrichsen emphasizes: “The future problem solvers and shapers of digitalization need high-quality knowledge. German UDS wants to provide them with this online in future, no matter where in the world they live and work.”
The range of courses – digital for digital
The following courses will be offered from October 1, 2024:
- MBA programs: Digital Technologies and Digital Transformation
- Master’s degree programs: Advanced Digital Reality, Applied AI, Cybersecurity and Digital Leadership
The launch of the first MBA and Master’s degree programs will be followed by a “Digital World” Bachelor’s degree. Open courses and micro-degree programs complement the digital courses on digital topics. A course on the innovation method Design Thinking is also in preparation.
Anyone interested can apply for the coming semester until September 15, 2024:
“We really see our unique selling point as a university in the term ‘digital’. It is the key to the future. This makes our offer coherent: we offer digital learning and teaching for the central digital topics of our time – digital technologies and transformation, digital reality and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital leadership. If you want to delve deep into these topics, you should already be using and applying the possibilities of digital technology during your training. It is therefore not only our practical collaborations with companies and partners worldwide, but also the specially developed learning platform German-UDS.academy, which synthesize study and practice through the study method. In our opinion, this contributes significantly to ‘learning by doing’,” Friedrichsen and Meinel explain. “After all, what is more educational than working on digital topics digitally? Ultimately, we learn everything in a context – walking, speaking, reading, writing… We want to move, communicate, participate and express ourselves. It’s no different in the digital world. Only if we feel at home in it can we immerse ourselves more deeply and (help) shape it.”
Virtual students at the German UDS will have to pay moderate and affordable fees of EUR 7,500 per academic year to obtain the Bachelor and Master of Science and Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees.
As a “beacon of the digital education landscape”, the German UDS aims to democratize global access to digital education and impart high-quality, innovative knowledge that is needed everywhere to master the digital transformation and help alleviate the shortage of IT specialists. “At the same time, the future digital university should also make an active contribution to ensuring freedom, equality, self-determination, tolerance and the rule of law in the digital world,” emphasizes Friedrichsen.
The German-UDS.academy learning platform
The German-UDS.academy is a digital education platform that offers a wide range of interactive online courses (MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses) and additional services. Professors, lecturers and researchers from the German University of Digital Science and its partners create interactive Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on a wide range of digital transformation topics, regardless of location. These courses are then offered on the German-UDS.academy platform. With these activities, the German-UDS.academy offers a global social learning network.
“Professors and other academics involved in our project have already prepared the first courses for this. They are aimed at anyone who wants to help shape the digital transformation and move safely and independently in the digital world,” reports Prof. Christoph Meinel, the former Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam, who left his position as HPI Managing Director in March 2023 and immediately dedicated himself to the founding project of the German UDS.
“With the first online courses of the emerging German UDS, we are demonstrating that we don’t just talk the talk, we also walk the walk,” adds Prof. Mike Friedrichsen, who previously taught at Stuttgart Media University (HdM) for 25 years.
Support from an international advisory board and two former science ministers
According to the initiators, the project of a private digital university is supported by an international advisory board of scientists. The eight-member advisory board includes experts from the universities of Stanford (USA), Monterrey (Mexico), Madrid (Spain) and Cape Town (South Africa) as well as professors and former science ministers Johanna Wanka and Sabine Kunst.
Non-profit sponsoring company is already active
Friedrichsen and Meinel have set up a foundation to realize their project, which is a shareholder of the non-profit supporting company “German University of Digital Science gGmbH”. This resides in the so-called “CloudHouse”, the headquarters of the German UDS, in Potsdam’s media city Babelsberg. It provides the start-up funding for the digital university and is responsible for all of its rights and obligations. According to the two initiators, they are currently in intensive discussions with private individuals, companies and institutions about contributions to the start-up funding.
(sp/German University of Digital Science gGmbH)
