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AI Austria monthly: March Update

Launching our job board, impact of ChatGPT on startups and companies, state of AI investments, new challenges and grant programs and many more topics.

Clemens Wasner

Matthias Grabner

, and

Michael Katzlberger

Mar 2, 2023

In February our homepage received a few long overdue facelifts. To prepare for more frequent news updates and a new home for long-form content we redesigned the news section. If you would like to write about a specific topic or cause just drop us a line, we are always looking for (guest) contributors. The other update is a direct reaction to THE most requested feature from our community - a jobs section (read more below).

Public interest in AI remains strong, especially since the hype around ChatGPT is approaching Bitcoin levels. Fortunately, this excitement leads to many new high-quality events, public grants, initiatives, and a renewed public discourse on AI policy and its economic impact.

With OpenAI announcing the release of the ChatGPT and Whisper API on March 1 interest will surely spark again - especially since the ChatGPT API is priced 10x lower than Davinci003, which has been since widely used by developers, we expect to see wider adoption of ChatGPT in existing and new products.

👋 Say Hello to (y)our community Job Board 🚀

We are excited to launch a free job board in response to popular demand. The job board will provide an easy self-service platform for job seekers to search for opportunities and for employers to post openings. We hope it will become a valuable resource for our community and look forward to lots of submissions. Please keep in mind this is version 1, we expect lots of tweaks down the road. If you have suggestions please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Check out the Job Board

🇦🇹 Podcast: State of ChatGPT & co and how it will affect the current tech landscape

Trending Topics interviewed Michael and Clemens on recent developments around ChatGPT and how they will impact market incumbents, startups, and European Tech in general.

📈 Infobit: M&A and Venture Capital in AI

AI investments have been picking up steam recently, in some cases buckling the global downturn in startup funding. Our friends at Samira Advisors took a look at current developments and trends Learn more…

🏫 AI School of the year

Our partner organization, the research and academia-focused Austrian Society for Artificial Intelligence (ASAI) held its second national competition for AI this year. Many students across Austria participated and submitted their solutions to showcase their knowledge and skills. For the second year in a row, HTL-Rennweg has been crowned the winner among all Austrian schools and received the prestigious title of "AI School of the Year." Congratulations to all the students and faculty involved in this remarkable achievement.

📕 Book & podcast: Liability issues in the use of artificial intelligence

Anna Minihold, a lawyer at Herbst Kinsky Rechtsanwälte, has released a new book and participated in a podcast on "Liability Issues in Artificial Intelligence." Anna explores the legal considerations surrounding AI, including the current Austrian legal landscape and proposed EU regulations. Her insights into the legal implications of AI make her work a must-read for anyone working in this field.

🎓 AI Academy turns three

Three years ago we launched the AI Academy together with the WIFI Niederösterreich. Soon the next batch will start. If you are interested in learning about the latest AI technologies and how they are used to analyze data, head over to the course page and register. Our advanced course will provide you with an in-depth look at supervised learning and data analysis. Suitable for adults with a completed education or professional experience, don't miss out on this amazing opportunity!

Open Calls & Grant programs

🚝 IÖB - Public Procurement Promoting Innovation

The latest IÖB challenge involves the ÖBB-Personenverkehr AG, who are looking for new solutions to improve the processing of passenger rights requests. The aim is to make the entire process more efficient, from designing the form to receiving the request and responding to it, through automation or AI support.

Submissions are open until April 13th, and we encourage anyone with innovative ideas to participate. This challenge is an excellent opportunity to contribute to the improvement of public transportation and make a positive impact on society.

♻️ Flagship project - Circulation of building materials and building components with AI support

This flagship project initiative promotes the circular use of building materials and components with AI support to reduce waste and emissions. The construction sector consumes a significant portion of global resources, and designing non-toxic and repairable building components is crucial. The FTI Initiative supports innovative research projects that aid in reducing carbon emissions and tackling societal challenges such as the climate crisis and resource scarcity.

🚨 aws AI grant programs already closing on March 31st!

For all still interested in joining, the aws Austria Wirtschaftsservice KI-Marktplatz team is embarking on a roadshow attending the following events:

ZUKUNFT. DIGITALISIERUNG. FÜR KMU., Tabakfabrik Linz on March 8
Salz21, Salzburg, March 15-16
Green Tech Valley Cluster: KI in Ihren Produkten und Dienstleistungen, online, March 16

Attendees can approach the team for more details or contact them directly with any queries.

🗞️ AI in the Austrian media

Artificial Krapfen Challenge - a sweet success story: Viennese advertising agency Ogilvy launched the "Artificial Krapfen Challenge" for the vienna bakery Ströck, asking fans to create their own Krapfen designs using AI. 3LIOT.ai had the honor of technically planning and implementing this advanced AI project. With 96.000 AI images made with DALLE-2 and Stable Diffusion, the project is already the surprise marketing stunt of the year! Learn more …

ChatGPT & capitalism: TV station Puls24 launched a new business magazine which unsurprisingly chose AI as the focus topic for its first episode.

AI and the energy transition: In its current issue Forbes DACH features AI startups tackling climate change and energy transition.

MagicDev sets new record for seed stage funding of an Austrian AI startup: Co-founders Eric Steinberger and Sebastian De Ro, two graduates from HTL Spengergasse’s high potential track led by Prof.Harald Zumpf, pulverized both the seed stage and series A record for the highest round of an Austrian AI startup. While this is an incredible achievement and encouraging sign for the ecosystem, it raises the question why Austrian investors are not willing to invest at international valuations and rather sit at the sidelines of this and similar deals.