Change in education happens where people build it together.

How it started

At the kick-off weekend of the EdTech Austria Fellowship, we experienced for the first time what it feels like to be part of something bigger. Before that, we had mostly thought and built within our own bubble. There, we met people who also wanted to change something in education, who shared their experiences openly and supported one another.

It quickly became clear to us that Vienna needed this kind of exchange on a regular basis too. Together with Competence Works FlexCo — who were also part of the Fellowship and had already been working in the edtech industry for a long time — the idea for the Stammtisch was born. Over the years, they had repeatedly seen how little exchange there was even between young and long-established edtech companies.

So together we decided to create exactly that space.

Where we are now

That's how the EdTech Stammtisch Vienna came to be. Even in its first months, it became clear how strong the demand for a space like this was — and how long it had been missing in Vienna.

The Stammtisch has since been taken under the umbrella of EdTech Austria, and now continues as the EdTech Austria Stammtisch Vienna, powered by Alimax FlexCo and Competence Works FlexCo.

Here, young and established start-ups come together with educational institutions, research, business and policy. Conversations turn into new connections, shared ideas and concrete partnerships. People who might otherwise never have met start working together and developing education further.

Why we're creating it

At events and meetups, conversations often happen that far more people should hear. People bring in their experiences, disagree with each other, pick up ideas and build on them together. Then the evening is over, and much of what just emerged goes quiet.

With the podcast, we want to give these conversations more room, and make them accessible to people who weren't there.

At the same time, LinkedIn, blogs and other channels are increasingly flooded with AI-generated content. A lot of it sounds similar, stays on the surface, and feels as if every thought was already finished before a real conversation even began. The podcast is meant to be a counterweight to exactly that.

You should be able to see and hear how people really talk to each other — how they react to one another, explain their view, and maybe realise partway through a conversation that something is more complex than it first seemed.

What it will be

At the centre of every episode is a concrete question about education, learning or technology. Depending on the topic, one person speaks from their own experience, we as hosts pick up a question ourselves, or we deliberately bring together people who know the same topic from very different positions.

That means students can talk with the people who make decisions about school, teachers with developers of learning technology, or start-ups with companies that are actually using new learning offerings. Research meets practice, political responsibility meets the people who experience its decisions day to day.

It's exactly in these conversations that it should become visible why change is so often difficult, where it really gets stuck, and what would need to happen for something to move. At the same time, it can also show that people with very different starting points are sometimes closer together on certain questions than it looks from the outside.

For us, the podcast and the EdTech Austria Vienna Stammtisch belong closely together. Questions that come up at a Stammtisch can be carried further in the podcast with the right people. Conversely, ideas from an episode can spark new conversations and topics for upcoming Stammtische. That way the exchange doesn't end with one evening or one recording — it carries over from one format into the next.

Because the conversations that can really change education must not end with the people who had them.