High Performance Trip: "It's  the perfect time to be an engineer!"

June 14, 2024: 18 high-potential international fellows are visiting the strong economic and innovation region of Styria as part of a High Performance Trip organized by the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation. One of the Foundation's primary missions is to foster #TransatlanticExcellence between the United States and Austria.

“Our High Performance Trip format contributes to this goal by increasing networking among students and fellows, opinion leaders, decision makers, and leading companies,” says Markus Schweiger, Executive Director of the Foundation.

Day two of the trip focused high tech, innovation and research in the huge field of mobility: The group visited a global market leader in the science, analysis and research of technical systems: AVL List.

AVL was founded in 1948, recently had a turnover of around 2 billion euros and is now present in 26 countries. 12,200 people work for AVL List worldwide. Almost 70% of them are engineers and scientists, which is remarkable. So it's impressive, but not surprising, that about 10% of the annual turnover is invested in in-house R&D. and that there are about 2,200 patents in force.

The company started the visit with a top management welcome board: Georg List, Vice President Strategy, Horst Pfluegl, Global Research Coordinator, Maria Kollmann, Director Public-Private Affairs and Markus Tomaschitz, Chief Human Resources Officer and Company Spokesman, as well as Harald Maierhofer as guide, opened the program with a presentation and discussion round.

One big story line through the whole visit: Demand is driven by technological and regulatory change. And to drive the change and to make the world better and more sustainable, we need the best brains. And these need an environment that fosters innovation and ideas.

Although Europe is not the technological leader, AVL List counts on Europe: it has a unique and strong climate of cooperation. However, it is not enough to say and stay, it is necessary to deliver. And there is no doubt that Europe must become more competitive.

The times are demanding, but AVL List is convinced: There are so many unanswered questions:

𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫!

This was underlined by the guided tour after the panel discussion, which offered interesting insights and opportunities for high potentials: The high-tech company AVL List has its finger on the pulse of mobility technology and its development, measurement and control.

“Our High Performance Trip to Graz was a great success. It’s essential to build and support strong networks and ecosystems between organizations and players in Austria and the US. The next trip is already in our development pipeline”, says Karin Emprechtinger, Director of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation.