Economic Development Institute
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The Economic Promotion Institute ( WIFI ) is an Austrian organization for professional adult education . Over 30,000 courses are attended by around 350,000 participants each year. 12,000 trainers come directly from professional practice.
The WIFIs are part of the state of the chambers WKÖ present and in all states with 9 country organizations and 80 branches. There are also WIFI branches in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Hungary.
Tatjana Baborek has been the director of the institute since 2019. Markus Raml has been the curator of WIFI Austria since November 2015.
history
Institutionalization after 1945
At the instigation of the then State Secretary Julius Raab , the Chamber for Trade, Commerce, Industry, Money and Credit was created in 1945. A few weeks later, the economic development institutes were launched. With them the promotion of trade could be institutionalized in Austria. On October 8, 1945 the first course for clerks was opened. In the course of the following months, the training was gradually expanded to other professional fields.
The Chamber of Commerce Act was passed by the Austrian National Council on July 24, 1946 and put the economic development institutes on a legal basis. The first institute directors' conference took place on October 8th and 9th.
Cultural and educational mission of the WIFI
The area of responsibility of the economic development institutes was regulated in Section 30 of the Economic Chamber Act according to the list below:
- Initial and continuing education,
- general, technical and business economic development,
- Trade fairs, exhibitions, sample shows and
- any educational measures abroad.
The economic development institutes are therefore not limited to vocational training and further education, but have a broad cultural and educational mandate to fulfill. However, vocational training is of the greatest importance.
For many years, trade fairs and exhibitions have been an important service offered by WIFI. Since 2000, the trade fair area has been part of the foreign trade organization AWO of the Chamber of Commerce.
Milestones
- In 1946 the establishment and expansion of offers for the trade begins.
- From 1948 to 2000, the WIFI trade fair department supported local businesses abroad.
- In 1970 the WIFI started with "Train the Trainer" courses.
- In 1975 the WIFI comes into the company and starts training in companies for the first time.
- In 1990 the WIFI International Know-how Transfer (IKT) is founded.
- In 1991 the first specialist academy was founded.
- In 1995, WIFI courses are bundled for the first time in seven business areas: management / corporate management, personality, languages, business administration, IT / IT, technology and industries.
- In 1996 the WIFI Management Forum is founded.
- In 1998 the WIFI developed its first e-learning offer.
- The first university course at WIFI starts in 2000.
- Since 2002, the WIFI Entrepreneur Service has been advising 15,000 domestic businesses every year. Until the chamber reform in 2000, WIFI experts also carried out consultations themselves.
- In 2003 the first WIFI courses with MBA degrees began in cooperation with the M / O / T School of the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.
In addition, the WIFI establishes 8 branches in Eastern Europe and WIFI business academies in Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Tyrol.
- Since 2006, over 300 trainers have been trained as eCoachs.
- Since 2009, the Eastern European activities have been bundled in WIFI International GmbH.
- In 2010 there were 12,000 trainers working for WIFI across Austria.
- 2011: Start of cooperation with Tomáš Zdechovský and Commservis.com in the Czech Republic - foundation of WIFI Czech Republic
- 2014: The courses of the vocational academy, which are carried out by the WIFI together with the FHWien der WKW , enable transparent educational paths from teaching to master's degree.
- 2019: The vocational academy celebrates its 1,000th anniversary. Graduates.
The WIFI brand
The WIFI brand was built up through a uniform, cross-border advertising campaign from the 1970s. Advertising in TV spots, advertisements and direct mailings always used the color green.
In the WIFI course book each country WIFI published their entire production. The WIFI course books have a print run of 500,000 copies.
Used advertising slogans :
- 1966: "Professional success = WIFI courses"
- 1971: "WIFI - The New Learning"
- 1983: "WIFI means head start"
- 1995: "WIFI - your course is rising"
- 2004: "WIFI - Now I want to know"
- 2008: “WIFI. Knowledge is forever. "
- 2017: "WIFI. Keep learning."
Awareness of the WIFI brand is 94%, as a 2009 study by the market research institute Gallup / Karmasin attests.
organization
The economic development institutes of the federal states are assigned directly to the respective chamber office directorate, but have largely internal autonomy in planning their activities. In addition, the board of directors of the Federal Chamber of Commerce must appoint a board of trustees to advise the business development institute on various measures.
WIFI Austria is the umbrella organization of the 9 state WIFIs. It looks after companies, Austria's employees and everyone who practices lifelong learning . We work in four teams:
- WIFI education management : Development and coordination department for all WIFIs. Development of new educational products.
- WIFI Entrepreneur Service (UNS) : Coordination point for the nationwide business service network of the Austrian Economic Chambers.
- WIFI International Network (WIN): hub for the internationalization of WIFI services, development of seminars and management courses worldwide.
WIFI certification body
The WIFI certification body was set up as a personal certification body for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and was accredited by the BMWA at the time . This certifies that she is allowed to certify people with high reliability and quality. This also ensures the international recognition of certificates. The certification system was set up according to the criteria of the Austrian Accreditation Act and corresponds to the requirements of ÖNORM EN ISO / IEC 17024 for personal certification bodies . There are currently 28 different certification programs at WIFI.
WIFI-International
Since 1990, WIFI has also been active in Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries and offers series of seminars. There are currently (2013) WIFI branches in the following countries and cities:
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Albania
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Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Bulgaria
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Croatia
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Poland
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Romania
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Serbia -
Slovakia
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Czech Republic
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Turkey
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Hungary
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Knowledgebase adult education
- ↑ WIFI Vienna ( Memento from May 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Legal information system of the Republic of Austria : [1]
- ↑ "1946-2006. 60 years of WIFI. ", Anniversary brochure of the WIFI of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Vienna 2006.
- ↑ https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20141021_OTS0133/neu-in-oesterreich-berufsakademie-handel-erffektreich-started
- ↑ https://news.wko.at/news/oesterreich/Berufsakademie-von-WIFI-und-FHWien:-Tausendster-Weiterbil.html
- ↑ "1946-2006. 60 years of WIFI. ", Anniversary brochure of the WIFI of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Vienna 2006.
- ↑ https://www.leadersnet.at/news/26469,wifi-will-mit-360-grad-kampagne-lust-auf-weiterbildung-machen.html
- ↑ Gallup / Karmasin: WIFI is still number 1 ( Memento from November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Legal information system of the Republic of Austria : [2]
- ↑ WIFI certification body ( Memento from February 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ WIFI International locations , accessed on September 11, 2013.