On an early cold November morning the students gathered at the Villach campus of the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS) to board the bus and begin their journey to Croatia and Slovenia. The first stop on their journey was the Zagreb factory of the Croatian hyper-car manufacturer Rimac Group. The group has two main subsidiaries: One of them is Rimac Technologies, which is responsible for innovation and development in electrical vehicle and transportation technologies, designing and manufacturing components for the premium segment of electric vehicles. The other subsidiary is Rimac Automobili/Bugatti Rimac, a joint venture with the French luxury car brand Bugatti.
After a strict security check the students were showed around the factory building and were able to examine the processes of car manufacturing first-hand, and to engage into conversation about the details of the production process. The tour was followed by an informative presentation and Q&A session with Matthias Wich, Christian Blume and Mihovil Peric from the Corporate Development department, which gave the students deep insights into the business strategies of Rimac Group.
After a short lunch break at the lakeside of Camp Zagreb, the students continued their journey to the amazing Sky Office building were the second company, Porsche eBike Performance, is located. Here, the enthusiastic IBM members were given a tour by managing director Kresimir Hlede. The participants experienced a very open and extremely friendly conversation in which topics such as the company history, the technologies, the customer relations, the founding challenges and the future prospects of the company were discussed. The students found out that Greyp Bikes was acquired by Porsche Group to become part of a new venture called Porsche eBike Performance that combines the brand name and engineering capabilities of Porsche with the technological excellence and expertise of Greyp Bikes.
On the second day, after enjoying the night life of Zagreb, the IBM class left Hotel Dubrovnik and headed for Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. On the bus ride, the students enjoyed a friendly quiz competition about Slovenian trivia and won traditional goodies kindly offered by senior lecturer Katarina Gutownig-Fürst.
Arriving at the meeting room kindly provided by the GRAWE insurance company with the support of the Austrian embassy in Slovenia, the IBM team met co-founder Vasja Veber and Denis Calakovic from Viberate, a highly successful startup in the music analytics industry. The digital platform of Viberate unites services such as talent discovery, artist monitoring, campaign planning, analytical reporting, music distribution and festival pitching. Engaging into discussion with start-up founders is always a unique opportunity. Taking a look at the challenges and decision of the company during its start-up and growth phase, the students could learnt from both mistakes and best practices at Viberate, and could also get an insight of how it feels to be a real entrepreneur.
“If I need to summarize the excursion in one idea, I would say that we truly experienced how important it is to follow our dreams. Visions keep us going and keep us motivated to look for the future, giving us the power never to give up!”
– Kristof Dudas, 3rd semester IBM student and assistant organizer of the excursion
