With the announcement of the 10 finalists, the discovery phase of SIA 2023 officially came to an end: a 2-month workshop series in which the SIA team was able to travel to many parts of Austria again this year, starting with a kick-off evening in Vienna. SIA not only organised their own Social Impact Weekends but was also part of local events and on the road in schools. With the content, concrete success stories and practical tools, we introduced young people to the topic of social entrepreneurship in an interactive way and supported them in developing their own ideas.

Afterwards, interested people could submit their project ideas for the SIA Incubation. With 65 submissions, more ideas were submitted this year than ever before. We were pleased about the great interest and see this number as a sign of the innovation potential of young people and their motivation to become active themselves.

After all the ideas had been carefully evaluated and assessed by the screening team and the jury, the festive highlight took place on 30 May with the announcement of the finalists. Christopher Stelzmüller, SIA alumni and winner of the 2018 award, was also present, sharing insights from the journey of his venture triply, hurdles and learnings with the participants and giving them valuable tips for budding entrepreneurs.

But who are the 10 finalist projects of the SIA Austria 2023?

INDEPENDO
Independo is a digital non-verbal calendar diary for people with cognitive disabilities that displays appointments in the form of pictograms and audio.

INDIMA
The automatic evaluation of qualifications acquired abroad by migrants as well as information on further training opportunities are intended to combat the shortage of skilled workers in Upper Austria.

CARE TIME - SEEING THE PERSON.
An app that shows the person in need of care as a person and not just the illness the person is suffering from. Above all, this app should be easy to use and show the interests (DO's and DON'Ts) of the patients.

USE YOUR RIGHT
UseYourRight. Your right to housing. The AI-based online platform for social legal basic care, which makes housing rights understandable and clearly accessible.

ALL CAPS
A sustainable mushroom production that uses paper as a substrate. Mainly waste paper and cardboard scraps are recycled, which serve as a nutrient base for an edible mushroom cultivation.

HARVEST GREENER
With the help of our platform, very small & small farms in the EU can get access to more resources (monetary: subsidies from EU & intellectual: personalised learning plan for sustainable transformation).

WALD WAND

WaldWand develops living moss modules for façades. The balanced combination of specific moss species, cultivation and the material used support the concept developed. We want to create a new cityscape.

ZENYTH INNOVATIONS

We aim to reduce the harm caused by cement worldwide by using discarded sewage sludge ash and providing a cost-effective, carbon-negative partial substitute product that reinforces the quality of concrete and builds structures to last.

ONE-TO-ONE

One-to-One supports people with disabilities in finding assistive devices that meet their individual needs.

COMCOM

ComCom provides free interpreting services via video or audio call to improve communication between hearing and deaf people. This facilitates the integration of deaf people into society and improves their quality of life.

Congratulations!

These projects will now join our three-month incubation programme and thus participate in our joint bootcamps with SIA Germany. They will also get access to team-specific mentoring, a pool of experts and will produce a short video presenting the project idea. After this incubation programme, 4 jury and 1 community voting winning projects will be selected at the final award ceremony, each receiving prize money of €3,500 to further develop their project. This competition takes place in all 18 countries where SIA is represented.