The nonprofit Digital Education Foundation was founded in 2019 by Michaela Wienke and Jürgen Biffar.
Founded in 2019 by Michaela Wienke and Jürgen Biffar
In November 2019, the non-profit Digital Education Foundation was founded and approved by the Government of Upper Bavaria. The foundation sees itself as a service provider for educational institutions, which we want to enable to raise the level of education by creating and providing excellent learning tools.
In a first pilot project, the Foundation proves that the development and exemplary use of learning software within the framework of an effective learning platform significantly increases teaching and learning success. At the same time, structures and processes are created that enable a rapid nationwide expansion.
We offer the educational institutions service packages for the creation of learning tools for other grades, subjects, school types and other regions.
The Founders
Jürgen Biffar founded the software company DocuWare in Germering in 1988 as a student with former classmates. Together with his partner Thomas Schneck and, most recently, over 350 dedicated employees, he led the company to international success. Today, DocuWare is the world market leader for cloud-based document management and process automation in medium-sized companies. In 2019, both partners withdrew from the company and handed over the management of the company to experienced managers from within the company.
The donor couple Michaela Wienke and Jürgen Biffar live in Germering with their children. Already during his time at DocuWare, Jürgen Biffar was fascinated by the topic of digital education, inspired by his experiences at DocuWare, by the development of his own daughters and their circles of friends, and by the proximity to local schools that resulted from his volunteer work. Michaela Wienke was the main support for Jürgen Biffar and his family during his time at DocuWare. Thanks to this role and her many years of commitment as a parent advisory board member, she brings a great deal of practical experience to the joint foundation project. In 2019 both decided to invest a significant portion of the proceeds from the sale of the DocuWare shares in a foundation dedicated to digital education. Within the foundation, they also want to dedicate their own energy to the topic.
Our three Locations
Germering / Germany
Germering is the home of the founders, to whom both owe a lot. Together with friends, they offered the first "Girls Technik Camps" for girls aged 8 to 13 years as part of the Industrial Association Germering in 2016. In December 2018, the DigiClub e.V. was founded out of this initiative with young pupils, students, local companies, schools and private sponsors. Thanks to many years of work in the local School-Business-Committee, there are close ties to the local Schools. The city and the network that has been created are the ideal location for the headquarters of our foundation.
Eichstätt / Germany
Jürgen Biffar and Prof. Dr. Heiner Böttger met in spring 2018. Heiner Böttger trains college students as teachers at the Catholic University of Eichstätt and is also a passionate neuroscientist. He was infected by Jürgen Biffar's enthusiasm for digital learning and so they jointly conducted the first study seminar "Learning Success Through Digitalization" in the winter semester 2018/19. Twenty committed students analyzed the existing range of digital learning tools, evaluated their suitability for school lessons and developed their own concepts for learning programs that are geared to the given curricula. The commitment of the students and the results of their work were so outstanding that Heiner Böttger and Jürgen Biffar felt encouraged to start the development of excellent digital learning tools together with student teachers.
Since then, Eichstätt has proved to be the perfect location for the content conception of digital learning. Highly dedicated students are enthusiastic about working here. The university impresses with its great dynamics. Experts for "user experience" are recruited from the nearby Ingolstadt Technical University. In April 2020, a separate office is opened, which serves as a co-working space, meeting room and office and is a permanent meeting place for our author's and UX team.
Sofia / Bulgaria
Excellent software, as we need it for digital learning, needs excellent programmers, software architects, quality assurance and operations managers. In 1998, Nemetschek Bulgaria was founded by the Munich-based software group of the same name in Sofia, Bulgaria. It offers software development for third parties. Our founder, Jürgen Biffar, was a DocuWare customer from the very beginning. Today, Nemetschek Bulgaria is majority-owned by George Brashnarov, who has been managing director of the company from the beginning and now employs over 300 people. When Jürgen Biffar told him about his mission to increase the learning success of students in public schools with the help of very good software, he was thrilled. He offered to provide our foundation with a very good team at favorable conditions.
That is why we have excellent engineers in Sofia today, led by experienced managers. They develop the digital learning tools in close cooperation with our authors from Eichstätt. The EU country Bulgaria is home to many highly motivated software developers who can extend us in the future.
Administration
Stable processes and structures, reliable management are the basis of our foundation work. We rely on the expertise of internal and external specialists.
Join in and be Part of it
We are always looking for creative thinkers, motivated developers and committed team players.