Place Beyond Bytes
Join our dynamic community...
of creators & entrepreneurs to transform your ideas into impactful ventures
At Place Beyond Bytes, students and members of University of Duisburg-Essen can build their own digital products ands services for a better future.
We are a community of creatives, entrepreneurs, change makers - innopreneurs.
Place Beyond Bytes combines physical and virtual spaces to work, chat, collaborate, and learn together.
Place Beyond Bytes is located in the beautiful Dahlbender Villa at Haniel Campus, Duisburg Ruhrort.
Building and growing a digital venture
Incubation towards x futures
build your prototype and receive ECTS
Student Projects
Each semester, we offer students in Information Systems the chance to build their own prototypes as part of the WISEM project.
Over the course of one semester, you build a digital prototype and develop a first viable business model. You will get full access to all services of PBB to help you jump start your own venture.
Workshops and Mentorship
We provide 1-to-1 mentorship to help you further develop your prototype, service, product, and business model.
In addition, we offer workshops in small groups so that you can further advance your digital skills or business knowledge.
Among others, these include workshops on:
- User Experience and Frontend Design
- Data Analytics with Python
- Web Development
- Machine Learning Architectures
Follow our Eventbrite site for latest offerings.
Physical Space for You
You have 24 hours, 7 days a week access to your own offices at the beautiful Dahlbender Villa in Duisburg-Ruhrort.
There, you will find modern office equipment, places to chat and collaborate in a comfy environment - in the garden or in the seating areas.
In addition, we have a highly flexible workshop rooms and meeting areas for you, your partners, or your team.
Visit us at
Franz-Haniel-Platz 1
47119 Duisburg
Digital Space for YOU
In order to develop your prototype, we provide you with all necessary equipment, including GPU compute or hardware equipment. Naturally, all desks are equiped with display, and anything you need to get going.
Additionally, we have a green screen studio on site that you can use do produce professional images or videos. No matter if you need them for your social media campaign or for producing professionally lit image data for your machine learning models. This studio will help you sort it.
Personal growth
Qualification towards x futures
Bachelor Courses
Join our Bachelor courses in E3:
In Entrepreneurship with Purpose, students learn about the characteristics of entrepreneurial ventures that are driven by a dual mission: a strong social, societal and/or ecological purpose alongside economic goals.
Master courses
We provide multiple master courses on the intersection between Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Digital Technology.
Many of which are open for participation across study programs:
- The course Entrepreneurial Design (aka Sustainable Digital Entrepreneurship) introduces students to the basics of digital entrepreneurship and sustainability with a focus on digital ideation and entrepreneurial design. Conducted in a practice-oriented approach, students work in teams on selected problems and develop solutions themselves.
- In the course Disruptive Innovation and Moonshot Design, students delve into disruptive innovations that have a great potential for long term changes, focusing on integrating environmental and social responsibility into economic success.
- In the course Towards Sustainable Futures with AI students get familiar with concepts and theories that describe and explain AI companies, and learn about the design of Machine Learning-based applications.
Master Sustainable Innopreneurship
Join our master program and become an Innopreneur.
The Master's in Sustainable Innopreneurship offers teaching in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation at the interface of digital technologies, society and business as well as sustainability. In small cohorts, students learn problem-solving orientation, idea creation and development, sometimes in intensive teamwork. There is room for individual development and continuous references to real-life contexts. Real problems are considered and worked on in cooperation with entrepreneurial and academic partners.
Cabguard
Luke and Daniel develop with Cab Guard a digital guardian angel for taxi drivers. Essentially, they want to make it possible to trigger a silent alarm that can be triggered independently of external people, cell phones and vehicles. GPS coordinates are transmitted to the control center at the push of a button. CabGuard thus offers reliable and fast help around the clock and is intended to increase employees' sense of security and enable more efficient alerting of the control center and the police. The product is aimed in particular at self-employed taxi drivers within a cooperative and at taxi companies that want to increase their employee safety.
Chloe Brimicombe
"Had a fantastic experience at a workshop on entrepreneurship by the P2I Network in Duisburg this week. Everyone was lovely and very knowledgeable about a range of different sciences and also start up businesses.“
Frances Liddell
"It's rare to be able to spend a whole week reflecting on your career plans and last week helped me to delve deeper into my thinking about consultancy and career paths that will enable me to work in both academia and industry.“
Diffusione
Diffusione is an AI venture by Elias who automates product imagery. His web services allows customers to automatically produce product images for various contexts. Clients can choose people, poses, styles and environments and Diffusione automatically produces images with client products, such as clothes or accessories.
Amar Meddahi
"I found the program especially enriching because it brought together researchers from diverse fields, including literature, engineering, and medical studies, offering unique perspectives and tools.“
Vinush Vigneswaran
"An exhilarating week at p2i in Action Place Beyond Bytes Germany, being amongst likeminded innovators from institutions all over the world! Thank you to Hannes Rothe for hosting the event, and thanks to all the speakers and facilitators“
Anabel Martinez Lyons
"What a pleasure to attend the p2i Network's event at University of Duisburg-Essen with a great group of post docs, tutors and entrepreneurs graciously hosted by Hannes Rothe and Tomasz Waliczko.“
Place Beyond Bytes is free-of-charge for students and members of the University of Duisburg-Essen.
Full on-site Members
- free of charge for members of University of Duisburg-Essen
- office spaces in Duisburg
- 24/7 access
- digital infrastructures, e.g., virtual machines or cloud software
- a professional photo and video studio for crowdfunding or social media campaigns.
- mentorship and sparring with experienced GUIDE mentors.
- further education on tech and entrepreneurship
- remain up-to-date about the startup ecosystem in the Ruhr Area
Digital Members
- free of charge for members of University of Duisburg-Essen
- further education on tech and entrepreneurship
- remain up-to-date about the startup ecosystem in the Ruhr Area
"Stay in Touch"-Members
- remain up-to-date about the startup ecosystem in the Ruhr Area
- free of charge for everyone
At Place Beyond Bytes, we empower entrepreneurs and startups to turn bold ideas into impactful innovations. We invite companies, investors, and partners to join us in shaping the future of entrepreneurship.
How You Can Support
1. Donate: Your contributions drive our mission, funding workshops, events, and resources that help startups thrive. Support innovation with a one-time or ongoing donation.
2. Mentor: Share your expertise with aspiring entrepreneurs and startup teams. Your guidance can shape ideas, solve challenges, and build the future of innovation.
Partner Benefits
- Showcase your commitment to innovation.
- Gain visibility on our platforms and events.
- Network with startups, industry leaders, and fellow supporters.
Together, we can inspire change and create lasting impact for the Ruhr Area.
Contact us today to learn how you can help!