Hundreds of startups and spinoffs, millions of euros of university revenues from innovation, high-level professionalism in entre

This year the Danube Cup International Startup Competition was hosted by Linz between 15 and 18 May, with participants from 8 universities. 2 teams from Corvinus qualified for the prestigious event, where university lecturers and mentors who helped the students in the preparation process had several meetings to boost entrepreneurship-focused international cooperation. Győr became a full member and the 10th member of the network, which is now present in 5 countries. In 2025, Belgrade, whose team ‘Artemi’ won this year, will host the international finals of the Danube Cup Competition.  

The support of university-based startups seems to have gained new momentum. After a few lean years, university teams working on innovative business ideas can now take part in various trainings and competitions again, some offering grants (HSUP), others prizes of several million HUF (Újbuda Student Startup Competition, the Cross University programme of MNB). The crown of this process is when university teams compete abroad to explore the international viability of their business ideas.  

Johannes Kepler University has provided complex support to students and faculty members in their innovation and business creation activities for decades. With 24,000 students, JKU is the largest university in Upper Austria, and it was ranked no. 200-250 globally by THE (Times Higher Education) in 2024 in the field of business education.  

The university opened the LIT OIC, an 8000 sqm open innovation centre in 2019, which provides a platform for the commercialisation of scientific innovation research. LIT OIC is a knowledge transfer centre where interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work groups conduct technological research, and it offers startups and spinoffs access to innovation platforms.  

Corvinus and the Budapest University of Technology sent 2 university startup teams each to the international Danube Cup Competition. University lecturers helped the students prepare for the competition and they accompanied the teams to Linz to have several project meetings about future collaborations. 

Corvinus University was represented by two teams: CASAR, which decorates leather bags with custom leather artwork and uMix3D, the winner of the Hungarian finals, who developed an online fitting room solution for clothes shopping. After the preliminaries, CASAR represented Corvinus at the international finals in Linz.  

The first prize at the international competition went to Artemi from Belgrade. Artemi is developing an innovative mobile game that combines engaging online gameplay with physical activity and with exploring the real world, promoting health preservation and social interaction. The second prize went to BridgeAID from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics for developing a system for monitoring the condition of road bridges. Luvia from Passau took third place. The team has developed a viable innovation for controlling the reproduction of urban pigeon populations. 

Dr. Attila Petheő, Dr. Tamás Pesuth and Dr. Loretta Huszák travelled to Linz with the student teams of Corvinus.  

Besides the university, the following organisations and companies sponsored the trip of the Corvinus delegation: Austria-Hungary Action Foundation, BKIK, 77elektronika, Tresorit, Bolt, OTP Fáy András Foundation, IGPark Logisztikai és Ingatlanfejlesztő Kft. We thank our partners for their support, which was instrumental in the preparations and in our participation.   

Further information on the Danube Cup and the international finals in Linz is available here.  

Prof. Elisabeth Berger, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Head of Institute of Entrepreneurship, host of the DC’24 competition 

CASAR Fashion, the best Corvinus team: Orsolya Császár, Zsófia Császár, Johanna Bokor (BA in Economics and Management) 

DC’24 top three (Belgrade / BME team / Passau) 

Photos by Andreas Röbl