Start-Up Programme of St. Pölten UAS Extended

The St. Pölten UAS’ start-up programme, the Creative Pre-Incubator is currently being extended in more than one way. Having entered its tenth round, the programme started with five new teams this semester.

Moreover, the cooperation with “accent Inkubator” was recently extended. This means that this opportunity will be open for creative and innovative students for another five years.

From Student Team to Company

In 2013, accent Inkubator – the agency for business foundation of the Province of Lower Austria – and the St. Pölten UAS developed and launched the promotion programme Creative Pre-Incubator for UAS students. In the same year, the programme was first started with three teams at the St. Pölten UAS. To date, 34 teams have completed the programme and St. Pölten UAS students and graduates have founded more than ten companies.

The format’s sponsor – the provincial government’s Department of Economics, Tourism, and Technology – recently decided to extend the programme which is now available for students with business ideas for at least another five years.

Important Component of the Start-Up Ecosystem

“The favourable developments of the businesses founded by our students and graduates as well as some awards that distinguish our institution as an Entrepreneurial University show that we have established ourselves as an important part of the start-up landscape in Austria and have a lasting impact on the economic development of our region”, says Hannes Raffaseder, Chief Research and Innovation Officer of the St. Pölten UAS.

“We provide a variety of impulses for the promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation, for example through the SMARTUP initiative of the city of St. Pölten, the Digital Innovation Hubs, and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Network of our European University E³UDRES², which receives funding from the EIT. The Creative Pre-Incubator, which we launched together with accent ten years ago, plays a central role in this development and constitutes an essential component of our ‘7 Steps to Start-Up!’, a programme that allows us to support students and graduates”, explains Gabriele Permoser, Head of Service Unit Research and Knowledge Transfer.

“There are many exciting ideas and new business models waiting to be discovered in the heads of our students. With the Creative Pre-Incubator, we help to make sure that instead of remaining mere ideas, these are made reality”, emphasise Ursula Steiner (Head of the Creative Pre-Incubator) and Michael Moll (CEO of accent Inkubator).

New Teams: Crowd-Sourcing, IT Security, Social Platforms

This semester, five new student teams started the programme with their business ideas:

• Marlies Riepl and Lena Kernstock with Colegio, a crowd-sourcing platform for learning materials in keeping with the times
• Christoph Dorfmeister and Isabella Haag with SkillSwap, an innovative application platform for better opportunities and efficiency
• Lukas Ganster and Fabian Gaugusch with Lento, a music-centred social platform
• Denise Rossbacher, Gela Rachinger, and Chiara Sparrer with Stafety, a highly functional security app
• Michal Pierzchalski with Query, a cyber security business model

The Creative Pre-Incubator was developed by the St. Pölten UAS together with the “accent” start-up service and is a collaboration between the St. Pölten UAS and accent Inkubator GmbH. The programme is supported by the province of Lower Austria (Department of Economics, Tourism & Technology) and financed with means from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Since 2021, the programme has been open for all universities of applied sciences in Lower Austria.

• Creative Pre-Incubator
• Creative Pre-Incubator at St. Pölten UAS' webpage with information about all teams