WU master’s students win 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in Austrian semi-finals of the Henkel Innovation Challenge

The Henkel Innovation Challenge is a worldwide competition for university students to come up with an innovative and sustainable product concept and marketing plan for the year 2050 in the product categories Beauty Care, Laundry & Home Care, or Adhesive Technologies. Before the international finals, there are semi-finals in every participating country, for which students from different academic backgrounds can apply. This year, WU can proudly announce that the first three places all went to teams from WU master’s programs.

Our students had to pitch their ideas in front of an international jury composed of Henkel employees and had to defend their idea in a Q&A session. In the end, Annabelle Mai (CEMS master’s program) and Gloria Pölz (Master’s Program in Marketing) convinced the jury with a smart product idea for hair coloring and won first place, followed by David Dömötör (SIMC Master) and Janos Halasz (SIMC master’s program), who reached second place with their sustainable idea for Henkel’s Laundry & Home Care business. Third place went to the team of Katharina Rohrer (CEMS) and Amélie Dejean de la Bâtie (BOKU), who presented a product for the Adhesive Technologies category. The members of all three teams were rewarded with an internship voucher presented by Günter Thumser, President of Henkel CEE Laundry & Home Care. The winning team will represent Austria in the international finals of the challenge, which will be held in Vienna in April.