Both WU students and international students from partner universities – among them top universities like Smith School of Business at Queen’s University (Canada), McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas (USA) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) – have participated in a two-weeks intensive program on Innovation Management, organized and conducted by WU’s Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization. Under the guidance of Professor Dr. Christopher Lettl as the program’s Academic Director as well as the institute’s Assistant Professors Alessio Delpero (PhD) and Dr. Sonja Sperber, the students joined the on-site program between 15th and 26th May. Besides two insightful keynotes from Georg Kapsch (CEO of Kapsch AG) and Awi Lifshitz (CEO at weXelerate), the course contained academic input sessions and group discussions on manifold topics, among them Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing, Networks and Ecosystems, as well as most recent topics on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Sustainability.

In collaboration with the project partner Ekipa, a leading open innovation incubator, the student groups worked on developing solutions for real-life challenges during both weeks.

Besides the extensive academic program, the students also enjoyed social events and cultural trips during their stay in Vienna, which also offered fantastic networking opportunities among the group members.

The program concluded with the final project presentations by the students in front of a jury, which was led by Paul Weinberger, a venture capital investor with extensive experience in start-up management, and our project partner Ekipa.

To know more, we suggest you to read the impressions of the students and of the faculty at the following link:

https://blog.wu.ac.at/2023/06/vienna-innovation-program-wu-2023-bringen-wir-innovation-networking-und-studierende-aus-aller-welt-zusammen/