Thrilling Germany’s next generation of technologists

In 2011, students at the High School Walburgisgymnasium Menden founded Technik Begeistert (literally, Thrilled by Technology) and sought to share their enthusiasm for robots. Two years on, the group’s leader, Markus Fleige and his team are among the brightest stars to emerge from the Google RISE Awards, a position underlined by MINT Zukunft Schaffen’s decision last month to name Markus as STEM Ambassador of the year.

The Technik Begeistert Team

Since Markus and Technik Begeistert received the RISE Award in January 2013, the number of teams entering the German rounds of the World Robotics Olympiad has more than doubled. Markus has launched a weekly YouTube series to enthuse teachers, students and parents. In 2014 Technik Begeistert will extend their efforts to target the 8-12 age group as well as continuing their strong focus on inspiring girls to try robotics.



Addressing the gender gap in tech is a common theme across Google’s Education Outreach in Germany. We support the Bundeswettbewerb Informatik, Germany’s national coding contest. Each year girls who enter the contest are invited to spend a day at Google’s engineering office in Munich, where they can be inspired by our growing team of female computer scientists. As a result, participation of girls in the finals increased from under 4% to over 20% in just one year.

This year two of the six national winners were female. Juliane Baldus went on to win a silver medal at the International Informatics Olympiad in Sydney. Our support has also been extended to the Jugend Forscht competition this year to inspire young researchers in science and technology.

These are just some of the many innovative initiatives Google is proud to support in Germany, with the goal of inspiring the next generation of computer scientists, and giving all children the opportunity to become creators, not simply consumers, of tomorrow’s technology.

Posted by Alison Cutler, Pre-University Education Outreach, EMEA