Terms & Conditions of Participation

SummerUP 2026 (“the Event”) takes place from 7 to 14 August 2026 at CODE University of Applied Sciences, Donaustraße 44, 12043 Berlin, with the final Pitch Day hosted at The Delta Campus at the same address.

The Event is organized by CODE University of Applied Sciences (“we”, “us”, “the Organizer”) together with its partners and sponsors listed on summerup.berlin.

Contact for anything related to these terms: hi@summerup.berlin

• Participation is by application and approval only. Every participant needs their own approved application and accepted ticket. Being part of a registered team does not by itself grant access.
• Participation is free of charge. Travel, accommodation and personal expenses are your own responsibility.
• Participants must be at least 18 years old.
• Attendance is in person. Kick-Off Day (7 August) and Pitch Day (14 August) are mandatory in person. We further expect attendance on at least 70% of the program days. There is no remote participation.
• If you can no longer attend, you must cancel your registration as early as possible so the spot can go to someone on the waitlist. Repeated no-shows without notice may lead to exclusion from future editions.
• We may withdraw a participation at any time if these terms, the Code of Conduct or campus rules are breached.

• Teams are formed during the Event and may consist of up to 4 people.
• You keep full ownership of your ideas, code, designs and any other intellectual property you create before or during the Event. We claim no ownership of and no license to your work product, and neither do our partners or sponsors.
• The only exception concerns your public presentations: pitches, demos and the material you show on stage or upload as part of the judging process may be recorded, shown and shared as described in section 5. Do not present confidential information you are not comfortable having recorded.
• We do not sign non-disclosure agreements for the Event, and neither participants, mentors, jury members nor partners are under any confidentiality obligation towards you unless separately agreed in writing.
• Similar ideas may be developed independently by other participants. Nobody is liable to anyone else for that.

We process the following data about you:

• Application data: the information you submitted in your application (name, contact details, background, links, answers to our questions).
• Platform data: your profile on the SummerUP platform, your team, your uploads, and your activity during the program.
• Event data: check-in records, attendance and pitch results.

We use this data to run the Event, to organize teams, mentoring, campus access and judging, and to communicate with you before, during and after the Event.

Sharing with partners and sponsors: you agreed to this when you registered. Your application data and your platform profile may be shared with the partners and sponsors listed on summerup.berlin, so they can contact you about investment, hiring, credits or their own programs. Each of them is then responsible for what they do with it, under their own privacy policy. Write to hi@summerup.berlin to withdraw that agreement and the sharing stops going forward.

Staying in touch after the Event: you agreed to this at registration too. We keep your name and email address on our SummerUP alumni list and contact you after the Event, for example with the aftermovie and results, invitations to future editions of SummerUP and to other CODE entrepreneurship events, and occasional updates on opportunities from our partners. This is optional, has no effect on your participation, and you can unsubscribe at any time with one click in every message or by writing to hi@summerup.berlin.

Your data is stored on our platform and on the tools we use to run the Event. We keep it for as long as needed for the Event and its documentation, and delete or anonymize it afterwards unless we are legally required to keep it. If you opted in to the alumni list, we keep your contact details until you unsubscribe.

You can at any time request access to, correction of or deletion of your data, object to specific processing, or withdraw your consent for the future, by writing to hi@summerup.berlin. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that already took place.

Photos, video and audio will be recorded throughout the Event, including at the Pitch Day and the surrounding social events. Signage on site marks the areas where we record.

Parts of the Event, in particular the Pitch Day, may also be streamed live and made available as a recording afterwards. If you pitch on stage or ask a question during a session, you may be visible and audible in that stream.

You agreed to this at registration. Recordings in which you appear may be used by the Organizer and by CODE University of Applied Sciences:

• for organic content (social media, website, newsletters, press, campus communication),
• for paid content and advertising (including paid social campaigns),
• for the official SummerUP aftermovie and other program documentation,
• and for communication by our partners and sponsors about their involvement in SummerUP.

This use is granted worldwide, for an unlimited period, free of charge, and includes editing, cutting and combining the material with other content. It does not include use in a way that is defamatory or that suggests you endorse a product without your agreement. You can withdraw the agreement at any time, with effect for the future, by writing to hi@summerup.berlin.

If you do not want to appear in recordings, tell us at check-in or write to hi@summerup.berlin. We will do our best to keep you out of shots and will remove material on request wherever this is reasonably possible. Note that on a busy campus we cannot guarantee that you never appear in the background of a wide shot.

• The prize pool for SummerUP 2026 is 10,000 EUR, distributed among the winning teams as announced at the Event.
• Teams qualify for the final through the Pre-Pitches. Selection and final ranking are decided by our jury. The decisions of the jury are final and cannot be contested. There is no legal recourse.
• To receive prize money, winning teams must provide the payout details we request. Payment is handled through CODE Science gGmbH and may take several weeks after the Event.
• Any taxes or other charges on prize money are the responsibility of the receiving team or individuals.
• Prize money is awarded to the team as a whole. How the team splits it internally is up to the team, and we take no part in that.

Partners and sponsors provide credits, tools and services to participants (for example API credits, hosting or software access). These are provided by the respective partner under the partner’s own terms and conditions. We pass them on as they are and give no warranty for availability, functionality or continued access.

We want SummerUP to be a place where everyone can work, learn and take risks safely.

• Treat everyone with respect. Harassment, discrimination, intimidation and any unwanted physical or verbal behaviour are not tolerated.
• Respect the campus, the rooms, the equipment and the people who work there. Keep the spaces clean and leave blocked areas free.
• Do not use the Event for aggressive recruiting, unsolicited selling or spamming other participants.
• Follow the instructions of the organizing team, the awareness team and the campus staff.

If something happens or you feel uncomfortable, talk to a member of our awareness team or the organizing team, or write to hi@summerup.berlin. We take reports seriously and treat them confidentially.

Breaches may lead to a warning, exclusion from the Event without prize eligibility, and removal from campus.

• Access to the campus is granted for the purpose and duration of the Event. Campus house rules apply at all times.
• Participation is at your own risk. You are responsible for your own belongings, your own equipment and your own health and insurance cover.
• We are liable without limitation for damages resulting from injury to life, body or health, and for damages caused by intent or gross negligence. In all other cases our liability is limited to the breach of essential contractual obligations and to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of agreement.
• You are liable for damage you cause to the venue, equipment or property of others.
• Alcohol may be served at social parts of the program. Consumption is voluntary and at your own responsibility.

We may change the schedule, the speakers, the workshops, the venues and the format of the Event, or cancel the Event entirely, for organizational reasons or reasons beyond our control. We will inform participants as early as possible. No claims arise from such changes.

• These terms are governed by German law.
• Should any provision be or become invalid, the remaining provisions stay in force.
• We may update these terms before the Event starts. The version published on the SummerUP platform at the time of the Event applies.