Open Austria

10/01/2026

Austrian founders on the Berkeley SkyDeck stage! 🇦🇹
Yesterday OPEN AUSTRIA joined Berkeley SkyDeck
Demo Day, the largest of Silicon Valley’s, where 18 early-stage teams pitched to top investors, corporate innovation leaders and ecosystem builders. The startups are building across Enterprise & Applied Al, Robotics & Physical Al, Advanced Industrial Systems, Life Sciences and Deep Tech.

We were especially proud to see Sandra Wasicek-Woegenstein, Founder & CEO of ZorroFi, take the stage, with Co-Founder & CTO Armin Wasicek supporting backstage and at the expo.
ZorroFi makes commercial credit expertise scalable. It helps community banks, credit unions and CDFIs verify loans faster and smarter by validating documents and detecting fraud early. The result is clean, decision-ready files that move from intake to underwriting in days instead of weeks.

With UC Berkeley ranked #1 worldwide for VC-backed startups and SkyDeck alumni having raised more than $4.5B, it’s great to see Austrian talent right at the heart of it.

Congratulations to the ZorroFi team, and to all Batch 22 founders! 🚀

09/28/2026

Every Silicon Valley story starts in a garage, and so did GoUSA 2026 🇺🇸🇦🇹
On day 0 of our three-week accelerator, we kicked things off in the garage of our Co-Director Michael Dobersberger. From there, we set off on our OPEN AUSTRIA Innovation Walk up Twin Peaks.
The GoUSA startups were joined by Austrian entrepreneurs visiting the Bay Area and members of our Open Austria community who have called this region home for years.
We wrapped up the day in the backyard of our Co-Director Isabella Tomás, with one-minute pitches from our startups, good food and plenty of time to mix, mingle and connect. 🫶🏻
Swipe through to see how it all started ➡️

09/21/2026

Austria at Europe in the Park! 🇦🇹🇪🇺

Golden Gate Park was buzzing this past Saturday as more than 10,000 people came together for the annual Europe in the Park - a colorful celebration of European culture - organized by the office in San Francisco.

This year, and teamed up again with to represent Austria at the event. Kids lined up to test-ride the woom bikes, turning our booth and the whole festival grounds into a lively mini-cycling zone.

brought a taste of home to try: kept visitors refreshed, while our spinning wheel had the whole booth excited. Prizes ranged from books about Austria to woom merch, with the grand prize being a woom bike, raffled at the end of the event!

Huge thanks to woom, the OPEN AUSTRIA team, all other Consulates who participated and the European Office SF for hosting. We loved connecting with everyone who stopped by our booth and are looking forward to seeing you at our upcoming events. ❤️

09/17/2026

Are you Austrian or a friend of Austria and attending the WeAreDevelopers World Congress next week? This is for you!

Join the Austrian tech community in San Jose for a casual meet-up, great conversations, and pure networking amidst Europe’s biggest dev congress making its US debut. Come connect with familiar faces, and grow your local network!

👉 RSVP in our bio!

05/13/2026

05/08/2026

Join OPEN AUSTRIA for a festive public viewing of the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 in San Francisco on Saturday, May 16th at The Crossing at East Cut! 🎤✨

​As Austria hosts this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, we are bringing the excitement, music, and Eurovision magic to the Bay Area together with our co-hosts at The Crossing at East Cut - the perfect location in downtown San Francisco! 🎶🇦🇹 🇪🇺

​Expect unforgettable performances, outrageous outfits, international flair, and plenty of cheering as Europe’s biggest live music event takes over the big screen. Whether you are a lifelong Eurovision fan or simply Eurovision-curious, everybody is welcome. 🥳🙌🎉

​This family friendly event is open to the public and brings together Austrians, Europeans, friends of Eurovision, and the wider Bay Area community for an afternoon of fun, music, and celebration.

​Who will take home the Eurovision crown this year? Will Austria’s own Cosmo 🧑‍🎤 bring the trophy back home for the host country? Join us to watch the drama, the votes, the performances, and all the iconic Eurovision moments unfold live together.

​A special thank you as well to the British American Business Council and Paistetta for supporting us.

​Come celebrate with us and experience Eurovision Bay Area style! ✨
RSVP link in the comments!

03/13/2026

2️⃣ days into GDC Festival of Gaming and the energy around the Austrian corner of the expo floor is already fantastic! 🇦🇹🎮 🎵

At Booth 2227, the Austrian Play Arcade   and the Austrian Sound Station   are buzzing with energy. ✨ 🇦🇹 Throughout the first two days, a steady stream of GDC visitors has been stopping by, with long lines forming to try out the games and experience the sound installations firsthand. Together with Pioneers of Game Development Austria, we are proud to showcase the creativity, talent, and growing momentum of Austria’s game development community.

Yesterday we hosted a lively  networking afternoon together with Swissnex in San Francisco, bringing together Austrian, Swiss, and German companies attending GDC. The event was supported by ReFocus Austria and turned into exactly what we had hoped for: great conversations, fresh insights from the show floor, and new connections across the game dev community.

A special highlight this morning: Simon Schneider, Board Member of PGDA Austria, took the stage at the GDC Arena to speak about the Austrian game industry and its growing international presence. 🎤

If you are at GDC, stop by Booth 2227 and say hello. The Austrian arcade is open! 🇦🇹🕹️

03/11/2026

Meet us at Festival of Gaming at the 𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐀𝐃𝐄: starting tomorrow until Friday at booth 2227!

Step into the 🎮 Austrian Play Arcade: and the 🎵 Austrian Sound Station: to experience a curated showcase of Austria’s most exciting game developers and game music creators.

⚡️𝙁𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙨 ⚡️
(For more detailed information, please see the link in the comments.)
🎮 Mi‘pu‘mi Games
🎮 Flathead Head Studio
🎮 stillalive studios
🎮 Redox Interactive
🎮 We Cure Boredom
🎮 Belvedere Museum (with Art Leap)
🎮 Accidently Awesome
🎮+🎵 Trimond Studios by Philipp Lehner
🎵 Vienna Synchron Stage
🎵 Happy Donkey Music by Raimund Hepp

🤝 In partnership with Pioneers of Game Development Austria, Austria’s national game development association!

02/14/2026

❤️ Happy Valentine’s Day from OPEN AUSTRIA ❤️
We‘re sending a little love from Silicon Valley ➡️ Boston ➡️ Austria and back.

To our founders, partners, community members, and friends who show up, share ideas, and support each other every day: we appreciate you more than you know.

Our favorite kind of love story?
🇦🇹Austria 🫶USA 🇺🇸

02/05/2026

Yesterday we joined the 2026 Botstiber Lecture in Austrian Studies at  University of California, Berkeley, where Consul Isabella Tomás delivered welcoming remarks to mark this special academic tradition.

This year marks the 5th for Austrian-American Studies Lecture held at Berkeley and the 4th time Consul Tomás had the pleasure of welcoming the visiting professors to the Bay Area. A wonderful testament to the strength and continuity of Austrian Studies in California.

We were honored to welcome Thomas Ertl, Professor of High and Late Medieval History at Freie Universität Berlin, who presented his lecture:
“The Jewish Community of Vienna in the Middle Ages: A Turbulent History and its Material Remains.”

Professor Ertl offered insights into the history of Vienna’s Jewish community, highlighting its cultural achievements, the profound challenges it faced, and the importance of material remains such as the medieval synagogue at Judenplatz in preserving memory and understanding daily life in the Middle Ages.

The event, moderated by Jeroen Dewulf, brought together scholars, students, and members of the community for a thoughtful discussion on history, resilience, and cross cultural understanding.

Thank you to the Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley, and all partners who made this event possible.

We are proud to support academic exchange and dialogue that deepen the connections between Austria and the Bay Area.