Since 2016, the three Austrian technical universities TU Wien, TU Graz and the University of Leoben, in association with TU Austria, have been organizing the Innovation Marathon: a 24-hour event in which international students work together to solve challenging tasks from companies.

While in the past years the students met for several days at the European Forum Alpbach, in whose program the Innovation Marathon is integrated, this year the event took place digitally due to corona. "The cooperation took place exclusively online, all students were in their home or study location," says Innovation Marathon Project Manager Mario Fallast. The TU Austria organization team and the innovation coaches of the Integrated Consulting Group who moved their workplace to Graz University of Technology during the 24 hours of the event digitally networked the students via Zoom and formed virtual teams around the world according to their education and interests: From Cairo to Graz, from La Paz to Cape Town, from Munich to Nairobi.