That pretty much sums up this year’s excursion of our Digital Entrepreneurship & Innovation Master’s students to ViennaUp: intense, inspiring, full of ideas — and above all, incredibly close to the actual reality of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Because that is exactly what our study programme is about: not just talking about entrepreneurship in the classroom, but becoming part of the ecosystem itself.
A Startup Ecosystem Instead of an “Outside Observer” Excursion
During ViennaUp, our students were right in the middle of the action: pitches, networking events, side events, coffee chats, panels, and spontaneous conversations with founders, investors, innovation managers, and international guests from the startup ecosystem.
Among others, we visited the WSA Global Congress, the ViennaUP Homebase, the INSIDEOUT Summit, our ecosystem partner weXelerate, and many additional community events throughout the week.
What made the experience especially valuable: many of the best conversations did not happen on stage, but in between — while waiting in line, grabbing coffee, walking between sessions, or during late-night networking discussions.
From the Classroom Straight to the First Sale
One particularly exciting moment: our student Leo from sprich.ai closed his very first sale during the excursion — one of those moments where entrepreneurship suddenly becomes very real.
Our student Raphaela created another classic ViennaUp story: through conversations around her school movement app, she spontaneously ended up in a meeting at a ministry.
And during the NextGen Digital Entrepreneurs Pitch Contest, our startup team behind Areas won first place against strong competition, ahead of Subsmart and Versoria — two equally innovative projects currently being developed within our study programme.
Moments like these perfectly demonstrate what can happen when students learn early on not only how to develop ideas, but also how to actively bring them into the world.
“Even the Biggest Rockstars of the Ecosystem Are Just Human”
Perhaps the most important insight of the week did not come from a keynote.
Many students were surprised by how approachable and open even the most well-known personalities of the startup ecosystem turned out to be. After the first few conversations, the hesitation to approach founders, investors, or innovation leaders quickly disappeared.
The probably most valuable networking life hack our students took home from Vienna:
Just go for it. Stay relaxed. Start with a bit of Austrian humour and personality.
Especially within the Austrian ecosystem, great conversations often start much more easily than expected.
