4th REPORT
COMENIUS project EEDU in Europe
(Entrepreneurship Education in Europe)
Vienna, April 2012

"Who will become the COMENIUS Entrepreneur Champion 2012?"
This was the topic of the final meeting of the EEDU in Europe – COMENIUS project from 26 April to 1 May 2012 in Vienna. Teachers and students from the Tietgen Handelsgymnasium in Odense, Denmark, from the Staatliche Fachoberschule (FOS) in Cham (Bayern), Germany and from HAK BFI Wien in Vienna, Austria came together to choose the winning team with the best business plan as COMENIUS Entrepreneur Champion 2012.

On Thursday the austrian students welcomed their guests from Denmark and Germany in Berggasse 19, a famous adress in the 9th district of Vienna – Sigmund Freud’s former apartment and office, where we visited an exhibition documenting the life and work of the founder of psychoanalysis. Together we explored the rooms where a totally new field of science had been created and where Freud and his family had spent 47 years. (www.freud-museum.at)

After listening to our guide’s information and watching the original furnishings, articles of daily use and antiquitites of Freud’s collection we went for dinner to restaurant "D’Landsknecht" to give an exhausting day of travelling a nice ending with well-known Viennese 'Gemütlichkeit'.

The following day should mark the formal ending of the two-year project with the final award ceremony. The students of the Danish, German and Austrian Comenius partner schools enthusiastically presented their business ideas to the jury in a highly professional way. The ideas covered a wide range: the Danish students present their practical kitchen-aid OUTCRUMBS and the very special SMART TIE. The German teams had created CARRY LARRY, a handy carrying aid for shopping bags, and had connected estate agents and customers with CHAMLANDMAKLER. The Austrian DIRTBUSTERS-team wanted to establish a flexible and sustainable cleaning service in the Viennese market and the SUNSHADE PLUS car accessory should prevent car accidents caused by blinding.

The jury, comprising of one entrepreneur, two financing experts from banks, a teacher for entrepreneurship education, and the deputy representative of the EC in Vienna, unanimously elected CARRY LARRY as the winner for the most innovative business idea due to its perfectly calculated financial plan and its convincing prototype.
The winners were really happy and all teams were awarded prizes and certificates for their outstanding performance and ideas.
The ceremony was closed with a vast buffet of home-made specialties of Viennese pastry.

A special highlight on Saturday morning was the excursion to the Danube Tower, Austria’s highest building at 252 metres above city level.
We took the express lift to the 150-m-highviewing terrace and enjoyed the spectacular view of the cosmopolitan city of Vienna. The teachers came up with something unique for our visit: a special quiz about Viennese towers showed us the old and new face of Vienna!

A bustrip on Sunday took all the project participants to the beautiful south of Vienna where we visited one of the foci of Austrian wine-growing: the picturesque medieval village of Gumpoldskirchen. After a short stroll and a visit to a vinery the trip continued to the marvellous Höllental, a breathtaking gorge where a one-hour hiking path along the rushing Schwarza mountain-river took the party to Kaiserbrunn where we took a giuded tour of the first source of the Viennese water-supply.

Monday – another day in Vienna, but the last day together!
Following the topic 'water' further we spent this day in the spa Therme Wien. We had absolutely deserved a relaxing end for our two-year project. We enjoyed the last hours together and ended this great last day of our joint project on an early hot summer evening in the center of Vienna by the Danube river at the Strandbar Herrmann in a beach atmosphere.

The relations and friendships we made will last. And we all, young and old, learned – much more than we can say with words – not only with our brains but also with our hearts!

Comenius Team Vienna
Barbara, Doris, Gerlinde, Susanna and Werner