Graduation of First Alumni of the Professional MBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Successful cooperation between TU Wien and WU Wien
The alumni of the Professional MBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation class 2006 - 2008
On October 3, 2008 the Graduation Ceremony of the first class of the Professional MBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation took place at the festival room of the Vienna University of Technology. Univ.Prof. Dr. Hans Kaiser, Vice Rector for International Affairs at TU Wien, was very glad to congratulate the first alumni of this successful joint venture between TU Wien and WU Wien.
The festive speech was delivered by Dr. Klaus Schedler, Vice Director of the Department for Education Policy at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ). He spoke about sustainability in science and education and pointed out the importance of lifelong learning in today’s business world.
Also Prof. DDr. Bodo B. Schlegelmilch, Dean WU Executive Academy, stressed the combination of technological excellence of TU Wien and managerial realization competence of WU Wien in his address. He congratulated the alumni on their degrees from two internationally renowned universities.
Then the Academic Directors presented the graduates of the Professional MBA Entrepreneurship & Innovation class 2006 – 2008 with the MBA diplomas. We congratulate:
Dipl.-Ing. Fabrizio De Pasquale, MBA
Mag. Jürg Flamm, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Gruber. MBA
Reinhold Gugler, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Christoph Handel, MBA
Dipl.-Phys. (Univ.) Mario Hehle, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Christian Jeschko, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Michael Kalkusch, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Martin Kanis, MBA
Erich Morawek, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Birgit Musil-Schläffer, MBA
Mathias Nöbauer, MBA, MSc
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Gerhard Pramhas, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Rauscha, MBA
Dipl.-HLFL-Ing. Michael Rührig, MBA
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Stefan Weinfurter, MBA
After the conferment of the MBA diplomas the Academic Directors honored the best faculty member and the best Master Thesis.
The Teaching Award for Excellency was awarded to Prof. Hisrich of the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. Univ.Doz. Dr. Leopold Sögner prized him as one of the leading capacities in the field of entrepreneurship worldwide.
Prof. Robert Hisrich was very honored to receive this award and happy to celebrate the graduation with the alumni. Teaching the group had always been a pleasure for him because of the very special relationship he had established to them. Due to the average professional experience of ten years he had also learned a lot from the students during discussions.
Univ.Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke praised the extraordinary high quality of the Master Theses which made it very hard to choose the very best one. Finally the Best Thesis Award was awarded to Dipl.-Ing. Fabrizio De Pasquale for his Master Thesis “A business model proposal for the commercialisation strategy of Devoteam’s innovative services for digital TV”.
On behalf of the alumni the valedictorian Dipl.-Ing. Michael Kalkusch thanked the Academic Directors and the Program Managers for their support during the last two years. Attending a part-time MBA Program had been very challenging but also opened new perspectives. He said that he benefited a lot from participating in this MBA Program and also many of his fellow students have already advanced in their careers. Events like the study trip to the Boston area helped enlarging the personal network and for many participants the start of the MBA Program was also the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
After the closing of the official ceremony the graduates celebrated with their families and friends and the guests of honor. We wish them all the very best!