FAU Scores Top Spot in SWC Program for Future Leaders of IT
The Softwarecampus program is an excellence-based program of Germany’s BMBF (research ministry) aimed at helping future leaders in software (IT) grow and reach their potential. It is open to Master’s and Ph.D. students of a selected few top universities in Germany, including FAU.
In the final major batch of the second round of the program, the SWC program accepted 9 Ph.D. students and 2 Master’s students from FAU, earning us the top spot. Runners-up were TU Dresden and TU Darmstadt with 8 Ph.D. students each, and KIT and TU Munich with 5 Ph.D. students each.
FAU joined the program in its second stage only (years 7-12), and has been building up ever since, concluding with this significant win (a closing but financially much smaller round from leftover funds is still to follow). The total amount of funds raised for FAU in this round eclipses €1M.
We (the professorship for open source source software) initially acquired the program for FAU (so that FAU could participate) and are managing the funds for FAU together with the program administrator (DLR).