With their business idea aimed at making music accessible to the hearing impaired, a team of WU and TU students took second place in the Business Concept Challenge, held as part of the networking event VT KnowledgeWorks Global Partnership Week at the US university Virginia Tech last month. The VIBEAT team was awarded $ 5,000 in prize money for this remarkable achievement.

The VT KnowledgeWorks Global Student Business Concept Challenge honors not only the prize-winning business concepts, but also the time, effort and creativity of the international students taking part in the contest, as well as their important contributions to the global economy. A promising idea and a carefully thought-out business concept were what gave the 4-student team their edge in the competition against 13 other excellent teams from all over the world. VIBEAT is working on an innovative new product that makes music accessible for the deaf and hearing impaired.

VIBEAT

The team consisted of 3 WU students and one TU student: Jennifer North, Jozef Strezenec and Michaela Naszada are currently enrolled in the Strategy, Innovation, and Management Control MSc program at WU, and Philipp Zbornik is a student of Business Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology (TU). The students' ideas were initially developed as part of the interdisciplinary course "Garage," a course format that started out at WU's Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and is now a joint project between WU, TU Vienna, BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, and the University of Veterinary Medicine. In this program, students generate ideas in teams and develop them until they are ready to be pitched to investors. Last semester, a jury of potential investors selected the VIBEAT team to travel to Virginia to compete in the Business Concept Challenge, where they won second place.

Interdisciplinary course format encourages creativity

WU's MSc students have the opportunity to participate in the "Garage"program in the coming semester as well. To apply, students should send their creative business idea (all formats welcome) by email to stefan.perkmann-berger@wu.ac.at. Applications are being accepted until September 20, 2012.

Further details can be found in the online course catalog VVZ or under www.startup-education.com

Contact:
Cornelia Moll
Press Relations Officer
Tel.: +43-1-31336-4977
cornelia.moll@wu.ac.at
http://www.wu.ac.at/press