Germany-based edtech startup, MyGermanUniversity, has been awarded €150,000 in public funding grants as it relocates to Germany’s second largest city, Hamburg.
Winning the “InnoRampUp” early-stage grant, MyGU is seeking to further expand the online platform for international students.
The portal has a database of more than 1,650 English-language master’s programs available in Germany – at 220 universities.
“We have developed an algorithm that guides students through the individual steps of their journey to a master’s in Germany”
The grant was made possible by IFB Innovationsstarter, a subsidiary of Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank, which supports technologically innovative early-stage start-ups.
MyGU has previously been funded by EXIST-Gründerstipendium – Business start-up grant – provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy in 2018/19.
The founders – Tobias Bargmann and Stephan Paulini – previously worked for the German Academic Exchange Service, heading up the Italian and Peruvian offices, respectively.
With the funding, MyGU will be expanded into the “first personalised platform on the topic of ‘Studying in Germany”, according to Bargmann.
“So far, all portals that list study programs or provide information about studying abroad leave the students more or less alone with the key challenge: What is relevant for me (and when) in order to start my studies abroad,” he told The PIE News.
“With ‘MyRoadmap’ we have developed an algorithm that guides students through the individual steps of their journey to a master’s in Germany, depending on their profile and the desired project. The first section of this is to go online in the course of the year,” he explained.
MyGU will also add all English-taught bachelor programs that the German universities offer prior to that, Bargmann added.
Moving from Berlin to Hamburg, the company will benefit from an “even more dynamic” university landscape.
“Per capita, Hamburg even has more German universities than the capital, including the University of Hamburg – which has been awarded one of the universities of excellence in 2019, for the first time – but also a number of rapidly growing private and well-renowned universities, including Bucerius Law School, Kühne Logistics University,” Bargmann added.
However, MyGU remains a national platform that provides international students with the “best possible information about all German universities”.
