At the end of April the Global Business students in the ACT paths presented their final projects. After having lived in 3 different countries, Canada, Taiwan and Austria everyone needed to relocate quite abruptly due to the Covid-19 situation. Under the expertise of Prof. Auer-Rizzi the Global Business team moved all the classes, exams and final presentations to the virtual setting. One of the biggest challenges was to teach, coach and work with students and colleagues in Asia, Europe and North America simultaneously. In addition, most students were in quarantine for 14 days in their home countries, in hostels, dormitories, their homes and some even in military camps.
The students survived not only 3 different cultural settings but also presented their final projects on ZOOM exceeding expectations from professors and companies involved. The projects the students finalized with companies such as voestalpine, BizUp, KEBA, UNIHA and TGW ranged from introducing new programs in executive education in HR to analyzing the start-up market in India and to identify target markets for water technologies in Asia.
In addition to their intercultural management skills, the students of this year’s program learned how to work in virtual teams and even how to master virtual presentations in unexpected situations.
ACT students visited Hallstatt before the Covid 19-lockdown, Credit: IFI