Meeting in Austria

Written by Andi Schober

Young entrepreneurs from four European countries met at the College of Engineering (HTL) in Wolfsberg.

From the 9th of January until the 13th of January 2017 the main topic at the College of Engineering (HTL) Wolfsberg was entrepreneurship. Due to the international exchange program Erasmus+, founded by the EU, students, and teachers from four European countries took part in the “School companies” project, which focuses on entrepreneurship.

The project partner schools consisted of different types of schools as well as different ages of the students. The schools „Samorzadowe Gimnazjum im.ks.S.Galasa w Kostkowie“, from Poland, „Colegiul Agricol si de Industrie Alimentara Vasile Adamachi“, from Romania and „Regionales Berufliches Bildungszentrum des Landeskreises Vorpommern-Rügen“ from Germany, gained a lot of useful experiences in Austria.

The headmaster Dr. Persoglia warmly welcomed the foreign students and teachers and showed them around at school and introduced the various national and international projects, which take place at the Carinthian school, and introduced the numerous laboratories and workshops. The projects partners seemed to be impressed by the inventory as well as the high standard of the Austrian dual educational system.

Throughout the week the students had to take part in workshops like teambuilding, conducted by the two experienced teachers Mr. Allesch and Mr. Gönitzer and the outstanding “systematic innovation” workshop, in which students gained competences in order to improve their creative skills. Furthermore, the students were involved in different workshops, where they worked with materials like plastics or metal. The Austrian project team introduced their product “Eggcellent” which is an eggholder made of metal in which people may engrave their names.

The next days the students visited some of the biggest companies in the region like Mahle and Knusperstube. In addition to that, the teacher Mrs. Oberwalder guided the guests through Wolfsberg’s history. Afterwards the mayor of Wolfsberg, Mr. Schlagholz invited the guests to the townhall and appreciated the international orientation of the Wolfsbergian College of Engineering. He also attached great importance to international co-operations and projects.

One of the week’s highlights was visiting the Pyramidenkogel, a hill with a wooden tower on it. From above there the students could see the beautiful landscape of Carinthia and the bordering states of Italy and Slovenia. Later they went to the Minimundus, an exhibition where the world’s most important buildings are rebuilt in a smaller scale. To round the day up the students had some free time to explore the city of Klagenfurt.

On the last day of the project, the teachers Mr. Jantschgi and Mr. Allesch gave a presentation about entrepreneurship at the HTL and the various experiences with previous school companies. Both proved that the College of Engineering was the perfect project partner to foster the foreign students’ skills according to founding and running companies.

All project parties seemed to be overwhelmed by the school and beautiful Carinthia. The Austrian students are also looking forward to meet the project partners in Poland, Germany and Romania to continue with the project.