Digitalization leads to a wider availability and use of digital technologies in our society. It goes hand-in-hand with more people, being able to utilize and develop digital systems. Digital entrepreneurs perceive opportunities because of their abilities and technological competences early and have the capacity to create novel solutions in larger solution spaces. Their entrepreneurial mindset enables the innovation products, processes, and business models.

Professor Rothe: Research on Digital Entrepreneurship in Smart Services

Professor Rothe is interested in activities and support structures of digital entrepreneurs. We research the entrepereneurial development of systems within organizations, such as business-managed or shadow systems (e.g., Fürstenau & Rothe 2014; Fürstenau, Rothe, & Sandner, 2017). However, processes applying digital technologies are less limited to organizational boundaries. Especially, because they rightfully make use of cloud- and platform-structures. To thoroughly explore and research such environments, we need to change the view from an individual- or company-level towards ecosystems (e.g., Rothe & Steier, 2016). In such ecosystems, we find the mechanisms explaining the rise and fall of entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. This is particularly relevant for services, that make use of the most basic resource of digitalization - data. Many new ventures are created on the basis of collecting, analyzing, and utiziling data. Such data-intensive (or smart service systems) arise in the net economy–see for instance programmatic advertising (Rothe & Wicke, 2017)–as well as in the old economy–e.g., educational sector (Rothe, 2016).

Founding the Digital Entrepreneurship Hub

From health services, over chemical processes and digital publishing to programmatic advertising - digital technologies change our personal and professional life.This change is enabled by entrepreneurs who take the opportunities of newly arising ecosystems. Professor Rothe founded the Digital Entrepreneurship Hub together with Professor Gersch to create an institution that binds activities of entreprneneurship education and research together.

• We at DEH are the central point of reference for entrepreneurship education and research at FU Berlin
• We at DEH support interdisciplinary activities for transferring research into market
• We at DEH develop a systematic support process (sensitizing and qualifying) for various target groups along "learning paths"
• We at DEH span the boundary between the FU Berlin and startup ecosystems in Berlin, the EU, and the rest of the world
• We at DEH closely collaborate with other stakeholders from the startup ecosystem (including new ventures, corporates & other multiplicators)

Current Project

Scaling AI Ventures (K.I.E.Z)

Since May 2021, we are a excited to take part in Berlin’s new K.I.E.Z. – “Künstliche Intelligenz Entrepreneurship Zentrum”. This initiative is dedicated to incubating and accelerating AI ventures. We provide entrepreneurs in AI with scientific expertise, access to capital, industry partners and hiring talent. As project lead for Freie Universität Berlin, we at the Digital Entrepreneurship Hub set our full focus on helping AI ventures grow in order to make Berlin a leading ecosystem for innovations with Artificial Intelligence. The project is funded for five four years by Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. See here.

Back then at the Entrepreneurial Network University

In January 2013, Freie Universität Berlin together with Charité Universitätsmedizin successfully acquired EUR 2.8 millions from the BMWi for their concept of the “Entrepreneurial Network University” (ENU). A central concern of ENU was a resign of the university-wide  „Entrepreneurship Education“ towards supporting more master and PhD students. Professor Rothe coordinated the working group from 2013 to 2018. In this timespan, more than 65 elements of teaching material have been developed, and about 270 educational components were collected on a newly developed platform. This Entrepreneurship teaching exchange platform (E-LAP) was a joint development with Professor Tolksdorf, from the department of mathematics and computer science.