International successes in the Hungarian-founded Danube Cup student pitch competition

All preliminary expectations were exceeded by the Danube Cup Community Day and Pitch Competition, which took place at WU Vienna between 30 and 31 May 2022. This was the first time that the final of the Danube Cup Competition, launched by Corvinus University and BME Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences (GTK) six years ago, was not organized in its original venue, Hungary, but at one of our most important partner universities, the WU Vienna instead. The organizers praised the fact that WU Vienna’s rector entered into a license agreement with the rectors of Corvinus and BME universities for the use of the joint EU trademark of these two Hungarian institutions. 

Students and lecturers from 7 universities in 4 different countries participated in the two-day event where they celebrated entrepreneurship together. The competition itself was a huge success. A large number of interested people followed the programmes that were organized as integral parts of Entrepreneurship Avenue and ViennaIP’22 events.  

Altogether 8 teams pitched in the final who were selected by participating universities in multi-round qualifiers. Most of these teams have been working on their business idea for nearly a year. At the end of the competition, AirMate from Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU) ended up as the winning team. They have been preparing a T-shirt that will help prevent children from drowning. Fashion and technology are well combined in their project. They arrived with a prototype, which certainly helped them contribute to the jury’s final decision. A shared second place was achieved by: SIGNOVATIVE, Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, and Circle One Packaging from WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business). Heartiest congratulations to the Corvinus University of Budapest‘s team: Charitask also did well. 

The awards were sponsored by: Plug and Play Tech Center (free coworking space and mentoring), Danube Cup organizers (cash and mentoring), student admission to Viva Technology (Europe’s biggest startup and tech event), and to IdeaLab! – WHU Founders’ Conference. All these awards can contribute to students further developing their entrepreneurial ideas. Next year’s Danube Cup is scheduled to be combined with a multi-day boot camp and will be co-organized by the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, the University of Regensburg, and the Universität Passau in southern Germany. 

In recent years, Danube Cup has evolved into a very strong international community. Both students and professors feel the importance of an international network and a secure collaborative background. 

The Hungarian team could not have participated in the event without the support of the following partners: 

www.danubecup.eu