About GEN in Austria

The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) has worked with the Austrian entrepreneurial ecosystem since the earliest days of its flagship program, with Austria participating in the inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign in 2008. The national campaign was led from the outset by the Initiative for Teaching Entrepreneurship (IFTE), a Vienna-based nonprofit focused on embedding an entrepreneurial mindset and skills into Austrian education. In GEW's first full reported year, IFTE organized eight activities with nine partner organizations and 450 participants; by 2010, that had grown to 15 activities, 10 partners, and 900 participants, with the campaign expanding steadily thereafter. 

Under IFTE's long-term stewardship, GEW Austria evolved into a national platform that convenes schools, universities, ministries, and founders each November. The campaign's anchor event has been the annual Entrepreneurship Summit in Vienna, held under themes such as "Design Your Future" and "Young People Shape the Future", which has brought together students, founders, educators, and policymakers to explore entrepreneurship as a core skill for the future. Johannes Lindner, founding chairman of IFTE, has described the Summit as an opportunity "to take a look into the future, together, and to learn from best practice examples." The Summit has drawn high-profile Austrian founders to the GEW stage, including Florian Gschwandtner, co-founder and former CEO of Runtastic – the Austrian sports app acquired by Adidas in 2015 in a deal valued at $240 million – who delivered a keynote address kicking off the campaign. In 2025, hosting responsibilities transitioned to Kirchliche Pädagogische Hochschule Wien/Krems (KPH Wien/Krems), reflecting the deep roots GEW Austria has established within the country's teacher-training and higher-education communities. 

Austrian government leaders have engaged with GEN's work over the years, with successive ministers recognizing GEW Austria as a moment to advance the country's entrepreneurship agenda. For example, in the early years Harald Mahrer, then State Secretary of Science, Research and Economics, and Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek, then Minister for Education, joined the GEW Austria festivities at the Entrepreneurship Summit with a message of "Start your project" in Vienna. Austria has more recently joined GEN's Startup Nations community, with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy participating as a public-sector member alongside peers from more than 80 countries. Florian Frauscher, Director General for Economic Affairs, Innovation and International Policy at the Austrian Federal Ministry, has been an active participant in Startup Nations field calls and policy exchanges, and following the 2019 European Commission SME Assembly in Helsinki, he sat down with GEN to reflect on Austria's recent entrepreneurship policies – including the country's 2019 Startup Initiative, its venture capital reforms, regulatory sandboxes, and the work of the Global Incubator Network Austria (GIN) connecting Austrian founders with hubs in Asia. 

Beyond GEW, Austrian startups have used GEN programs to grow internationally. As far back as 2012, Vienna-based Watchado was one of eight national finalists at Get in the Ring, the Rotterdam-based pitch competition that was incubated by GEW. In 2017, Vienna-headquartered Blitab – maker of the world's first tactile tablet for blind and visually impaired users – joined the GEN Starters Club, a global community of standout founders drawn from GEN's competitions. Two Austrian startups have made their way to the finals of the Entrepreneurship World Cup, run by GEN and Monsha'at, where they had access to free training resources, mentorship and exposure to potential investors. Cube Dx GmbH, a medical diagnostics company led by CEO Christoph Reschreiter and co-founder Fawaz Linjawi, reached the EWC 100 in both 2019 and 2020, and TAGBASE, a product-authentication startup, reached the EWC 100 in 2024. Each pitched for a share of $1 million at the EWC Global Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

On the research side, KPH Wien is a member of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network (GERN), GEN's community of academics and institutions working to translate entrepreneurship research into evidence-based policy and program design.  

GEN maintains broad relationships with key Austrian ecosystem stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Labour and Economy, IFTE, KPH Wien/Krems, the Austrian Federal Promotional Bank (AWS), the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the Global Incubator Network Austria, and the country's leading angel community. The Austrian Angel Investors Association (AAIA), led by Selma Prodanovic, is a member of GEN's Global Business Angels Network where Selma also serves on the Board representing Europe. 

With so many industry disruptors as members, GEN is proud to be active in the home of Joseph Schumpeter, the architect of creative disruption.  GEN's mission in Austria remains to connect new disruptors and what is a sophisticated and well-supported domestic ecosystem to global networks of founders, investors, researchers, and policymakers – ensuring that Austrian innovation continues to find a stage well beyond Vienna and that international best practice continues to flow back into Austria's classrooms, ministries, and startup communities.