Study Trip San Francisco & Silicon Valley
Academic program @ Golden Gate University and @ Berkeley
We offered 11 MBA students the incredible opportunity to visit the heart of innovation, entrepreneurship and high-tech in the Bay Area.
The Study Trip started in San Francisco at the Golden Gate University with a two-day academic program with Robert Shoffner and Joshua Neubert who presented an interesting introduction into the innovation culture and the Silicon Mindset. At the Faculty Club, the Berkeley professor Rick Rasmussen invited us to dive deeper in the exciting topics of Entrepreneurial frameworks and the innovation ecosystems including growth strategies for scaling a startup and the challenges with rapid growth.
Networking & Company Visits
As we learnt that one of the milestones in the Silicon Mindset is networking, we had the honor to take part on an exceptional demo night organized by Advantage Austria. Ten Austrian startups were presenting their pitches and we were able to experience live pitches and discussions with investors during this unforgettable networking event in the Parklab Gardens, an open-air location with food trucks as the ideal way to get easily connected with locals and Austrians who want to be successful with their innovative ideas. Thanks to Daniel and Isabella for sharing insights on economic and government developments and this awesome opportunity to network in such an inviting ambience.
In addition to the academic program, we visited different companies in various industries and gained firsthand insights on how the Silicon Valley business is going on. We want to retain this positive mindset in the long term and push it further here in Austria. Many thanks for the warm welcome and the impressive insights to Kitchen Town, LinkedIn, Google, PLUG and PLAY, Carbon 3D, Varian and Mario Herger who organized all these interesting company visits.
One of our highlights of this unique trip was an exhilarating ride with an autonomous taxi from WAYMO. It was an up-close experience of the future of mobility. Thanks to Mario!
We and especially the program manager, Claudia Buchinger, would like to thank the MBA-students for all these unforgettable experiences and hopes that she could make the stay as exciting and educational as possible for them.
