Alumni Homecoming: Happy graduates, great careers
27 January, 2023
120 alumni and top guests like Thomas Arnoldner (CEO of A1 Telekom Austria Group) gathered at the Alumni Homecoming in January.
Last week, the Technikum Wien Alumni Crowd organised a horizon-expanding New Year’s Eve at the FH ballroom in Vienna’s 20th district. About 120 visitors were there to refresh or make new contacts with other former and also current working colleagues, lecturers and staff members here. ORF journalist Anastasia Lopez hosted the evening.
“From children you can see how old you have become, from alumni events you can see how successful the university is,” said Rector Sylvia Geyer in her introduction and welcome. She was pleased that networking in direct, personal contact is finally possible again, after this had been very difficult in recent years due to Corona. But why are these alumni events so important? In addition to networking, it also brings motivation for lecturers and staff currently working here. “You get to hear how happy graduates* are, what careers they’ve had, and what a secure livelihood they’ve achieved through their education at FH Technikum Wien,” Geyer said.
“FH Technikum wants to stay in contact with graduates for the rest of their lives.”
FH Managing Director Florian Eckkrammer pointed out that FH Technikum Wien is very interested in staying in contact with graduates as closely as possible. Preferably lifelong and in the sense of “life long learning”. On the one hand, the UAS can provide ongoing support through continuing education, but input and feedback from graduates can also be very valuable for the UAS, for example on curricula or current continuing education courses in the course of the FH Technikum Academy.
Eckkrammer then spoke about the success story of the UAS, which began in 1994. Graduates and current students are in great demand, and many companies are lining up to hire them.
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A1 CEO Arnoldner: “Seize the opportunity of digitization”
Afterwards, Thomas Arnoldner, Chief Executive Officer of A1 Telekom Austria Group, (pictured above) spoke in his keynote about “seizing the opportunity of digitalization.” He reported on the close cooperation between A1 and FH Technikum that has existed since 2017. He said that they are very much aware of the high level of the graduates. He also talked about the technical progress since the foundation of the Technikum until today. Among other things, he raised the question of how our society could have coped with a global corona crisis in 1994 and what a major role technology now plays in home offices and home schooling. Arnoldner reported on A1’s plan to “network everything that makes sense for society to network.”
And he spoke about the most important business areas for his company as a full service provider: from the provision of 5G and fiber optic networks to artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and Internet of Things (IOT) applications, cyber security and the focus on customized, innovative software and hardware solutions for business.
Promoting contact between graduates and FH Technikum – presentation of the Alumni Advisory Board
Promoting contact between graduates and FH Technikum – presentation of the Alumni Advisory Board
In the next program item Rafael Rasinger (Innovation, Scale up and Networks – FH Technikum) introduced the current eight members of the Alumni Advisory Board: Daniel Horak (Conda Crowdinvesting), Sebastian Castaneda (mjam), Manuel Geyer (ÖBB), Hanno Lippitsch (Eversports), Marion Voehr (msg Plaut Austria), Angelika Kapeller (A1 Telekom Austria), Christian Fuchs (Wüstenrot) and Katrin Riemann (Ottobock). The Alumni Advisory Board is an informal group that aims to promote contact between graduates and the University of Applied Sciences.
Günter Essl, who is responsible for professional field research at the Technikum, then gave an overview of what he sees as the top three technology fields of the future. In addition to sustainable development goals, he said that these are primarily artificial intelligence and the shift to a transdisciplinary way of thinking. It is necessary to make the shift from pure knowledge to understanding, because the ability to analyze and work in a team is particularly in demand among technicians today.
Talk on stage – Current technical developments
At the “Talk on Stage”, Thomas Arnoldner (A1), Georg Krause (msg Plaut Austria), Denise Hirner (UpNano) and Gabriele Költringer (FH Technikum Wien Managing Director) then spoke about current technical developments. Arnoldner described “Meta Verse” as an example of a new technology that no one really understands at the beginning: “Then often comes disillusionment because it doesn’t catch on for a long time. But eventually it will find its way into society.” People started using video telephony back in the 1970s, for example, but it’s only in recent years that it’s really been widely used in video conference calls, he said.
The labor shortage was also a topic. Georg Krause (CEO of msg Plaut Austria) sees increasing the quota of women in technology as an important solution. The goal, he said, must be to employ 50 percent women in technical professions; currently, this quota in Austria is 19 percent. Finland is far ahead of us here, where this figure is already 30 percent. According to Krause, this can only be achieved with information. The image that technicians sit lonely at their PCs should finally be softened, and more should be done to show what great, exciting jobs there are in our industry.
Raffle for a place in the practical seminar of the Technikum Academy
Gabriele Költringer (FH Technikum) said that crises are also an opportunity, because then it goes even more in the direction that technicians can choose their jobs from a wide range. She referred to the important role of the “Technikum Academy” brand, which has been developed into a major player in recent years. Denise Hirner has a lot to say about crisis management. Her company “UpNano”, which manufactures 3D printers, was founded shortly before the Corona crisis and would probably no longer exist without well-functioning digitalization.
At the end of the official part, a place in the practical seminar of the Technikum Wien Academy in the field of User Experience Psychology was raffled among all graduates and handed over to the winner Markus Maximus by Thomas Faast (Managing Director of the Technikum Wien Academy).
At the end of the evening, snacks and drinks in a lounge atmosphere fulfilled one of the main purposes of the evening: Meeting people, exchanging experiences and networking.