Promoting Entrepreneurship - Youth Entrepreneurship Week
In October 2020, the Austria-wide initiative "Entrepreneurship Week" was piloted in Kitzbühel and Vienna as a face-to-face event and digitally. The project was carried out with the support of the Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism, the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber and the Federal Ministry of Education and was organized by AustrianStartups and the Initiative for Teaching Entrepreneurship (IFTE).
Within 3.5 days, 95 students from Vienna and Kitzbühel developed their own ideas for innovative projects, built the first prototypes and presented them to a jury at the end of the week. The results were mostly social and sustainable ideas such as the break box, a subscription model for healthy snacks, but also a sustainable, refillable nail polish pen or an alarm clock that uses smells to help you fall asleep and wake up.
The aim of this week is to get pupils excited about entrepreneurship. They should learn solution-oriented action, teamwork and creative thinking and be encouraged to believe in their own ideas and to pursue them in the classroom beyond the Entrepreneurship Week.
From the pilot phase in October 2020 to mid-May 2025, a total of 381 weeks were organized throughout Austria with the participation of around 13,500 young people (aged 14-19). In the 2024/25 school year, a total of 120 "Youth Entrepreneurship Weeks" and two "Youth Entrepreneurship Weeks Advanced" (in summer 2025) took place.
Further information at: www.entrepreneurshipwoche.at