E&I Touchdown

Event Details

Financial crisis, corona crisis, climate crisis or globalization – the world seems to change faster and faster. What are the requirements for companies to survive in a world full of change? It is clear that special times require special skills to handle. What are the requirements for the employees of the future? These are the questions we will be addressing at the 38th E&I Touchdown.

At the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (E&I) of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien), we are right at the heart of the matter, performing cutting-edge research and supporting more than 40 companies and organizations each year to navigate the rough business landscape and improve their innovation. This year, we want to give you some insight looks into this innovation ecosystem that we have built up over our almost 20 years of operation. Together with our corporate and academic partners, we have prepared exciting workshops for students, business practitioners and other interested participants.

The E&I Touchdown is the festive semester closing event of the E&I Institute. Every semester, E&I students solve 30 business challenges during the semester for start-ups and businesses like Microsoft, ÖBB or FESTO. At the E&I Touchdown, E&I students pitch their innovative solutions in 45 seconds to a jury of experts and a broad audience, competing for the Best-Pitch Award. Starting from January 19th 13:00, you have 72 hours to vote for your favorite team!

AGENDA

The practice-oriented teaching approach at the E&I Institute and our collaborations with numerous industry partners (startups, SMEs and well-established corporations) provide all ingredients needed for an exciting Touchdown agenda each semester. This time as a participant you can expect the following:

Day 1 (01/19/21): From classroom to boardroom

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke (Director of the E&I Institute) will welcome all guests to the 38th Touchdown. In an interview he will reveal what makes our approach to innovation so special. Learn how the Institute prepares future employees for their careers, from Bachelor’s, Master’s and MBA to PhD studies. Our moderator Helga Pattart-Drexler (WU Executive Academy) talks to students, alumni and project partners that will share their experiences with E&I.

The voting of the project pitches will also start on this day. For one semester, some of WU’s top-ranked students have devoted thousands of working hours into solving more than 30 company-specific practical problems of our project partners and will present the results in 45-second pitch videos.

Day 2 (01/20/21): The future needs cooperation

More and more companies are cooperating with each other in order to remain successful in the future. We are also aware of the added value of cooperation and are proud of our large network, which extends from our alumni to universities all over the world and from practice partners of start-ups to large international corporations. This network is the key success factor for our outstanding achievements in research and teaching, for which we also received several awards.

We are offering workshops for Touchdown participants, which are led by partners of our network. On this day, companies have the opportunity to interactively get to know our E&I staff, teaching methods as well as our E&I students. At the same time, we offer prospective E&I students to engage with the institute and our business partners to get first insights into the work of an E&I student.

On this day, there is also the E&I Hackathon, where participants slip into the role of our students and project partners in order to see what E&I is all about.

Day 3 (01/21/21): Who manages the future?

At this semester’s live event, renowned speakers will address the question of what will be expected of employees in the future. Furthermore, the voting for the best pitch video will be closed and the winners will be announced in the Award Ceremony. Already last semester we were overwhelmed by the outstanding quality of the pitch videos (e.g. winner video of Urban Monkey). After the live event, participants are warmly welcome to (virtually) mingle and network.