The evening
A circle of mentors that fills up person by person, each opening with a short impulse. Then founding ideas take the stage and are put to the test, and every mentor leaves the audience with one small take-away: a hint, a hack or a tool to use right away. Stage #4 closes the Inaugural Day of the Berlin College of Business and Technology and opens the AI Entrepreneurship Hackathon the next day.
- 00
16:00 · Pre-programme: guest lecture
Margarita Sivcheva on “Communication Skills in the AI Era” at the Berlin College of Business and Technology.
- 01
17:30 · Part 1: Perspectives
Valdrin Dervishaj and Daniela Schwerdt open the evening. Four mentors each give a short impulse, followed by questions from the audience.
- 02
17:58 · Part 2: Startup pitches
Three founding ideas, 5 minutes each, with direct feedback from the mentors.
- 03
18:40 · Closing round: take-aways
Every mentor leaves the room with one hint, hack or tool to use right away, followed by an outlook on the Build for Business Hackathon.
- 04
19:00 · Networking
Talk to mentors, moderators and founders until 20:00.
The theme: Intelligence in the Loop
AI is only as good as the data it learns from and the people who decide what to do with its answers. “Intelligence in the Loop” brings four perspectives together: how we communicate with and through AI, who owns what AI helps to create, what data and AI cost in energy and computing power, and how impact can be proven.
“Every streamed film, every installed app, every e-mail written causes CO₂. Every like has a footprint. And the cloud is not a cloud in the sky: it consumes enormous amounts of energy.”
The data iceberg
Most of the data organisations store is never used again. Above the waterline sits the small share that is business-critical. Below it lies dark data: data whose content and value nobody knows. It is unclear, unrecognised and still stored, secured and cooled every day. Planet & Pixels, developed in 2023 by AGEPO (World Cleanup) with FSAS (formerly Fujitsu), makes this hidden part visible.
Share of stored data · Veritas Global Databerg Report (2016; 2,550 respondents in 22 countries). Illustration: Planet & Pixels.
AI learns from the data we keep. If nobody knows what lies below the waterline, AI builds on it anyway. Better tools alone will not change this. Education will: people who understand their data, keep it clean and decide what is worth keeping.
Sovereign AI and data
How organisations create value with AI from data they control, and why clean, well-kept data is the basis: storing data that is never used again caused an estimated 5.8 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2020 (Veritas, 2020), roughly the annual emissions of 740,000 people in Germany.
AI, intellectual property and communication
Who owns what AI helps to create, and how founders communicate clearly with and through AI without losing their own voice.
Sustainable data culture
Information and communication technology causes 2.1–3.9 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all air traffic at around 2 % (Freitag et al., 2021). Planet & Pixels shows how a cleanup mindset makes digital work leaner, cheaper and more energy-efficient.
Why now
With the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the EU introduces a digital product passport for products sold in the single market. Data, AI and circular design are moving from pilot projects into everyday business.
Questions of the evening
01
How do founders communicate clearly with and through AI without losing their own voice?
02
Who owns what AI helps to create, and what should graduates and founders protect from day one?
03
Where must people stay in the loop when AI supports decisions on products, data and resources?
Where the evening leads
Clean data does not happen by itself. The closing round brings the three levers together that turn a cleanup into a culture.
Education
Data literacy for students, employees and founders: workshops, learning series and teaching formats such as Planet & Pixels and the BCBT programmes.
Verification and certification
What is claimed must be checkable: participation certificates as verifiable credentials and responsibility assessments such as the WCRI.
Civil society and associations
Change spreads through people who act together: World Cleanup Day Germany, Let’s Do It Germany e.V. and partner associations
Speakers
Karl Hausdorf
Helps organisations create value with AI from their own sovereign data. Previously head of Fujitsu’s Generative AI business incubator. FSAS (formerly Fujitsu) is a partner of Planet & Pixels and of World Cleanup Day Germany.
Holger Holland
Co-founder of BCBT and director of the WCI. Initiator of World Cleanup Day Germany, president of Let’s Do It Germany e.V. and EU Climate Pact Ambassador. In Planet & Pixels he brought together the environmental engagement of World Cleanup with the technical expertise of Fujitsu (today FSAS), and runs impulse workshops on a sustainable data culture at BCBT, Freie Universität Berlin and THEX. holgerholland.de
Margarita Sivcheva
Business development expert who connects people across countries and industries. On 22 October she also gives the guest lecture “Communication Skills in the AI Era” at BCBT. Her impulse: how we communicate with and through AI.
Francois Roloff
CEO and co-founder of Pyure, a Berlin climate-tech company that measures and reduces the CO₂ emissions of digital advertising. More than 18 years in AdTech and digital media, including as CEO of madvertise. His impulse: AI and intellectual property, and what graduates and founders need to know in the agentic era.
Valdrin Dervishaj
Co-founder of the Berlin College of Business and Technology, where he teaches human capital management and entrepreneurship. Previously advisor to the Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation of Kosovo, where he helped bring around 80 % of the ministry’s core services online within two years. His mission: making higher education more accessible, meaningful and impactful.
Daniela Schwerdt
Event host and moderator since 2018, and responsible for PR communication at the World Cleanup Institute. As ambassador of World Cleanup Day Germany she moderated this year’s national focus day in Bonn. She develops PR and social media strategies and likes to bring people and perspectives together on stage.
Pitch your startup idea
Have a startup idea? Pitch it.
The Startup Mentor Stage gives you 5 minutes to present your idea and get guidance from experienced mentors. Open to students and external participants. Early-stage ideas are welcome, a prototype is not required.
Connect
with mentors from the founder and investor community.
Get
valuable feedback on your idea in front of an audience.
Turn your idea
into impact, with concrete next steps.
Who should come
Founders and students
with an idea they want to test, or curious to see how others pitch.
AI and data people
who want to see where AI meets real products, materials and value chains.
Sustainability and data practitioners
working on green IT, data reduction, product data or ESG reporting.
Part of the sustainable data culture
The evening continues the work of Planet & Pixels (since 2023: Fujitsu Data Cleanup Week 2024, RWTH Aachen AIP conference 2024, transform_D Summit of the DSEE 2025). In February 2025 CIONET Germany, Fujitsu, World Cleanup, BCBT and EQAsce ran three online workshops on a sustainable data culture, each with an ESG participation certificate (announcement on Instagram) and of the WCI focus topic Sustainable Data Culture. The topic continues in the AI Entrepreneurship Hackathon (23–26 October 2026).
Previous Mentor Stages
Stage #3 · Brain over Capital
A Different Way of Entrepreneurship, with Günter Faltin · event report
Stage #2 · Intelligence in the Loop
Humans, AI and the Future of the Circular Economy · event report
Date & venue
Thursday, 22 October 2026 · 17:30–19:00, networking until 20:00
CIC Berlin (BCBT campus), Lohmühlenstraße 65, 12435 Berlin
Free of charge. To pitch your idea, please register via the form.
Part of the We Create Future initiative.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 on ecodesign requirements for sustainable products (ESPR), EUR-Lex.
- Planet & Pixels, programme page: Planet & Pixels (worldcleanup.org).
- Freitag, C., Berners-Lee, M., Widdicks, K., Knowles, B., Blair, G. S. & Friday, A. (2021). The real climate and transformative impact of ICT. Patterns, 2(9), 100340, doi:10.1016/j.patter.2021.100340.
- Veritas Technologies (2016): Global Databerg Report, summary: IDM, 18 March 2016. Veritas Technologies (2020), as cited on the Planet & Pixels page.
- Comparison per person: Germany emitted about 650 million tonnes CO₂e in 2024 (Umweltbundesamt), about 7.8 t per inhabitant; 5.8 Mt ÷ 7.8 t ≈ 740,000 people.
- BCBT on Instagram, 22 February 2025: online workshop series “Nachhaltige Datenkultur”.
- Holger Holland, “About me – Mein Leben”, holgerholland.de.
- Fujitsu at World Cleanup Day Germany: worldcleanupday.de/fujitsu.
- European Commission, ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan 2025–2030 (April 2025); summary: Sidley, April 2025.