Katja Urbatsch

Katja Urbatsch is the Founder and Managing Director of "Arbeiterkind.de", a German nonprofit organization to support first generation university students. Urbatsch has studied at the Free University in Berlin, as well as, at Boston University, earning an interdisciplinary Master’s degree in North American Studies and Business, combined with Communications and Media Studies. She worked as a research assistant at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and founded ArbeiterKind.de in 2008. ArbeiterKind.de’s vision is that every talented child from a non-academic family should have the opportunity for educational advancement. The 6,000 volunteers involved in 80 local city groups are mostly first generation students themselves. They encourage other talented youth through their own example. In 2018 Katja Urbatsch received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her work in strengthening equal opportunities in education. ArbeiterKind.de has received many awards, among them the German Involvement Award and the Ashoka Fellowship in 2009. Urbatsch represents Germany in the Executive Committee Executive of the European Access Network (EAN) since 2011. In 2011 Katja Urbatsch published a book on the topic of educational advancement: "Ausgebremst: Warum das Recht auf Bildung nicht für alle gilt".