Post by Achim Voermanek

My first time being a mentor and judge as part of a mock startup pitch hackathon here at SAP San Francisco. Together with OPEN AUSTRIA and the WU Executive Academy we hosted 50+ students from around the world at our office and had them run through some scenarios, that allowed them to do market research, explore go to market strategies and have fun along the way: 1. Design jewelry, a manufacturing plan, and a marketing strategy for SWAROVSKI 2. Explore the market potential for #SustainableAviationFuel #SAF for OMV 3. Integrate #AI into their future careers It was a tough choice for myself and my fellow judges, we crowned a winner with the Swarovski Pulse team Sam Walker Elena Komelkova Thomas Trinkl, Michaela Tonkovicova, Zsuzsanna Alexandra Gyuris and Alexandra Mayr. Dr. Lea Sonderegger, you should have them repeat their pitch at your office ;-) And runner up was the U2S Fuel team cracking the so tough supply and GTM problems around Sustainable Aviation Fuel. Filipp Pühringer Philip Nowack Klaus Blachnik, have the team do the short walk from WU Vienna to your HQ and repeat the pitch. I am sure the experts of the university with Irem Zararsiz and Eva Marckhgott can make that happen. Michael Dobersberger Silke English Zeba L. Jeanine LeFlore ★ Tattu Aidarova Susan Giesecke Anna Pototschnig Patrick E. Lina Cheng Jannur Bakyt Florian Kogler