The Deutschlandstipendium. For students. From alumni.
It goes without saying that students like getting scholarships. They can usually put the money to good use, and the recognition and the ideological support that often come with it encourages and motivates them. But what motivates the sponsors? Why does a private person or an entrepreneur decide to give 150 euros per month to a student? Without any favours in return and without obligations? We asked Mr. Dreske, an alumnus of our faculty and successful entrepreneur, what motivates him: It's about being in touch with students, the university and science.
Establishing active contact to one's alma mater
If you mention "Magrathea" you cannot ignore Douglas Adams. The cult author of the seventies ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") left a clear mark on the entrepreneur Gerd Dreske. Asked about the number of employees at his software company "Magrathea", he replies quick as a shot "42", and the number is also there as a screensaver on the office computers.
This influence is even clearer in the alumnus' ethos: "Work must be fun!" After a visit to the pub idea, physicist Dreske founded his company in 1992 with a friend and named it after the planet in Adams' galaxy, where luxury planets were built and went into hibernation in an economic downturn - only to wake up at the next upward cycle. Although this is hardly suitable as a business model, Dreske was very successful with hospital software.
Dreske heard about the Deutschlandstipendium through a letter from the university president, inviting alumni to join in. "I thought about what kind of people I would like to meet, and then decided to support two students each in mathematics, physics and computer science - the logic department, so to speak. Two of them were to be educational newcomers," he says. Dreske praises the changes over the last few years. "When I graduated in 1983, the university was still pretty fusty; a lot has happened since then, with contact being sought actively and openly with alumni and the city community."
Dreske took his six scholarship holders on a tour of the company. 23-year-old Sabrina Schulz is studying physics and immediately seized the opportunity to work as a software tester alongside her studies. "It's the first opportunity for me to get an insight into a company," she says. Thus, the Deutschlandstipendium provides not only a financial but also an ideological support for the students - and an opportunity for alumni to get in touch with students.
