The two top-ranked student ThinkGreen hackathon teams were awarded a study visit to Vienna and a visit to the ViennaUP 2022 Technology Festival, which took place in Vienna this year. VeinnaUP is an international start-up festival that hosted a large number of young tech enthusiasts, talents, start-ups, innovators, companies and various organizations that focus on sustainable development.
During their stay in Vienna, which was organized in the period from May 29 to June 1, 2022, eight students from two winning teams - Terrawatt and Wastelocate had the opportunity to compare the projects being worked on in Serbia with those being implemented in Europe. According to the awarded students, this was an opportunity to get acquainted with innovations, ways of presentation, public appearance, techniques used to attract investments, but also to hear new ideas and meet their colleagues from Europe.
"On the pitches, I noticed a lot of little things that are important for any type of public appearance. One example is the subtle kicking of the floor to attract attention. Of course, there were many others, such as tone, speed, accentuation of certain words. At the lecture on negotiations, I heard useful tips, such as, for example, win-win negotiations, and how we can make some seemingly impossible negotiations possible”, said Andrija Urošević, a member of the Wastelocate team.
Ana Radović, a member of the TerraWatt team, describes her experience: “Although not all lectures were directly related to my area of interest, this was more than a useful experience. I learned a lot of new things and gained a better insight into the world of entrepreneurship. I learned a lot about negotiation, funding, met a lot of people and made contacts, which will be useful to me when developing a company.
The student Think Green hackathon was organized in mid-April 2022, within the project "EU support to the Science and Technology Park Belgrade for services to innovative companies", study trip for two first-place teams was provided through the project "Pulse of Europe – Media Trips to the EU". Both projects are funded by the European Union.