The BWKI Award Ceremony 2025

On November 6, 2025, the award ceremony for the fifth national competition for artificial intelligence in Austria for school students took place. The competition is supported by the BMIMI (Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility, and Infrastructure) and organized by the Austrian Society for Artificial Intelligence. The jury was made up of experts from the fields of science, entrepreneurship, art and culture, law, and sustainability.

This year, 118 participants registered for the competition. Eighteen teams were formed, resulting in 18 submissions. The best seven projects made it to the finals, and four teams were awarded a total of €8,000. In addition, 58 participants enrolled in the AI course. This year, HTL Vöcklabruck secured the title of “AI School of the Year” with 1278 points in the AI course.

Members of the jury at BWKI 2025:

Katja Bühler, Scientific Director bei VRVis Zentrum für Virtual Reality und Visualisierung Forschungs-GmbH,

Alexandra Ciarnau, Präsidentin von Women in AI Austria mit Unterstützung von Sanja Sandic

Jeannette Gorzala, CEO & founder von Act.AI.Now,

Daniel Klotz, Assistant Professor an der IT:U- Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria,

Robert Legenstein,  Professor an der TU Graz und Leiter des Graz Center for Machine Learning

Bernhard Nessler, Research Manager beim Software Competence Center Hagenberg,

Gerfried Stocker, Director at Ars Electronica,

Klaus M. Steinmaurer,  Geschäftsführer der Rundfunk und Telekom Regulierungs-GmbH

 

1st place with €2,500: Team Interiorly from Htl Donaustadt  

Julian Schmidt from HTL Donaustadt won first place and the associated prize money of €2,500 with his Interiorly project.
Interiorly is an AI tool that allows users to simply describe their dream room by entering text and then generate photorealistic 360° panoramas. The AI automatically recognizes suitable furniture and links it directly to the design. This creates a seamless connection between room planning, visualization, and purchasing.

 

Second place with €2,000: LID from HTL St. Pölten
Team LID from HTL St. Pölten, consisting of Tobias Madlberger, Florian Schwanzer, and Fabian Popov, won second place and the associated prize money of €2,000.
LID stands for Language Identification. The three have developed an AI system that automatically assigns texts to their language – even for rare, low-resource languages. While many models only reliably support around 200 languages, their model covers over 2000 languages. This brings them much closer to the actual linguistic diversity of around 7000 languages worldwide and enables the identification of rare languages. A research group at the University of Vienna is already using their AI.

 

3rd place with €1,500: Team MedCodeAssist from HTL Spengergasse
Team MedCodeAssist from HTL Spengergasse, consisting of Teodora Radomirovic, Phillip Ostrega, Timo Burgmann, and Paul Totzauer, won 3rd place and received prize money of €1,500.
The goal of MedCodeAssist is to develop an AI-supported web application that automatically analyzes free-text medical documents, extracts relevant information, and transfers it in a structured manner to an FHIR-compliant form. This significantly simplifies the documentation process for doctors. The idea was pitched to ELGA and is now being realized jointly.

 

Special prize “AI for Green” with €2,000: Team ThinkBlue from HTL Wien West
Viktor Ibi from HTL Wien West secured the special prize “AI for Green” and thus €2,000.
ThinkBlue is an interactive AI simulation that shows how coral reefs develop under climate change. Artificial fish learn through neural networks to react to rising temperatures or environmental changes – and make it visible when ecosystems tip. ThinkBlue thus helps researchers and conservationists to develop effective strategies for protecting the oceans.

AI School of the Year 2025
In addition, the school that scored the most points in the AI course was awarded the title “AI School of the Year 2025.”  HTL Vöcklabruck won the race with 1,278 points, relegating HTL Rennweg, which had defended the title in previous years, to second place for the first time with 958 points.

 

 

The award ceremony of the third BWKI Austria, a state-wide Artificial Intelligence contest for high school students, was held on November 7th, 2023. The competition is supported by BMK (Bundesministerium für Klimaschutz, Umwelt, Energie, Mobilität, Innovation und Technologie). The top class jury was composed of experts in science, entrepreneurship, arts and culture, law, and sustainability.

 

Members of the jury at BWKI 2024:

Katja Bühler, Scientific Director at VRVis Zentrum für Virtual Reality und Visualisierung Forschungs-GmbH,

Jeannette Gorzala, CEO & founder of Act.AI.Now,

Stefanie Lindstaedt, Founding President of IT:U- Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria

Martina Mara, Professor at Johannes Kepler Universität Linz,

Daniel Klotz, Assistant Professor of Machine Learning in Earth Science at IT:U- Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria,

Gerfried Stocker, Director at Ars Electronica,

Bernhard Nessler,Research Manager Deep Learning & Certification at Software Competence Center Hagenberg,

and Bernhard Moser, Research Director at Software Competence Center Hagenberg

 

1st Place + Special Award AI for Green: Team NavigAI-tors from HTL Spengergasse

Congratulations to Mojmír Horváth, Hannah Fluch, Paul Wenth, Michael Steinmötzger, Richard Senger. They’ve won 1st place and the special award for AI for Green with their project to reduce CO₂ emissions in the shipping industry. Their AI optimizes routes to lower emissions, making logistics more sustainable and contributing to climate protection. This is an impressive step forward for the future of transportation. We’re celebrating this well-deserved win with you all.

2nd Place (tied): Team ProcessAeye from HTL-Perg and SicBert from HTL Hollabrunn

Congratulations to ProcessAeye and SicBert for securing shared 2nd place.

Team ProcessAeye, with Cedric Bauer and Stefan Czepl, impressed with an AI that restores damaged image areas in real-time, creating a new standard for camera and image applications.

Team SicBert featuring Florian Artlieb, Christoph Handschuh, and Leon Binder, developed a smart chatbot that searches through thousand-page manuals and helps resolving customer requests, while displaying the aggregated information and the reference pages in the manuals.

Both teams have showcased how AI can positively impact our world in so many ways. Congratulations on your inspiring projects and achievements in the finals.

 

3rd Place: Team Synth-UI from htl donaustadt

Congratulations to Julian Schmidt on taking 3rd place. Their project is changing the future of UI development by enabling users to create interfaces through voice input with no coding required. This is an incredible advancement for design enthusiasts. A well-deserved spot on the podium. We’re proud of you, Team Synth-UI.