About
A club that only works if people show up for it.
IACH is a non-profit, volunteer-run association for the international community of Softwarepark Hagenberg - students, researchers, founders and employees - and just as much for the Austrians here who want to help make it a place people stay.
The space
We have a lounge and a room in the IT-Center, Softwarepark Hagenberg. It isn't only for events: drop in to work, study, meet colleagues or relax. No single institution is at the centre of it - everyone is part of it.
The lounge is open whenever one of us is there to open it. Somebody always takes responsibility for the room and for the people in it. That is the condition on which we have the space, and it is why being a member matters: somebody has to be able to open the door.
- Until 17:00
- Networking zone, café, meetings
- 17:30 – 19:30
- Events
- From 19:30
- Informal networking, board game nights
These times reflect current intent and will follow demand and the capacity of the lounge.
It came with the yellow sofas. We take no credit for the coincidence.
Where we started
International graduates leave, or don't stay long, in Upper Austria. International employees often don't feel at home. Upper Austria still lacks a well-established culture of welcoming and integration, and most bachelor's programmes still run mainly in German.
None of that is fixed by an institution on anybody's behalf. It's fixed by a community that actually exists, meets regularly, and is fun enough that people keep coming back.
Where the idea came from
Prof. Bruno Buchberger who founded Softwarepark Hagenberg in 1989, wrote the concept for an International Digital Talents Center on behalf of the companies of the Softwarepark, as part of what this place should become over the next decade.
So this is not a side project. It is part of a plan for the future of the Softwarepark. And it has been one for years.
What came before
IACH also continues the work of the International Graduates Club Linz (IGCL) who was also run by Endre from 2008 to 2019. IGCL led to the founding of Come2UpperAustria, and the association SKILL (led by former ISI student A. H. Taha) grew out of it too.
This club takes those eleven years of experience and points them at Hagenberg specifically. The look of this site is also inherited from IGCL. It is a similar idea, in the Softwarepark.
Why this exists
I came to Hagenberg from Romania for the international informatics programme Bruno Buchberger built here.
What I did not expect was everything that came with it. He sorted out residence paperwork, arranged sponsorships, steered people towards the right supervisor and the right company. He treated a room full of foreign students like people who were staying, not people passing through. And a lot of us did stay. We stopped feeling like guests because someone decided that mattered.
15 years later he wrote down a plan for the future of the Softwarepark. We formed a small group of people and I ended up putting together the details. The association is registered. The lounge is ours. The funding is in place and the first events are already running.
That part is done. What this becomes now genuinely isn't up to me - it's up to whoever walks in and decides to do something.
- Endre Szasz-Revai, Founder of IACH
Why it matters
Softwarepark was built on getting things provably right.
The Softwarepark grew out of symbolic computation: Bruno Buchberger's Gröbner bases, and the institute he founded in 1987 to work on them. Symbolic methods do not just just produce an answer. They produce ones you can check, step by step, down to the axioms.
Advancing AI could use more of that. Models today are fluent, confident and very often wrong. Fixing this takes researchers, students, founders and engineers who are close enough to talk to each other. Let's make this space happen.
In Hagenberg those people are all within a few hundred metres of each other, and most of them have never met. That is the entire reason this club is worth the effort.
What we're for
Community
Build a real community among international students, graduates and employees in Softwarepark Hagenberg - and between them and the people who already live here.
Integration
Connect that community to the businesses, institutions and residents of Hagenberg and Upper Austria, so that "home" is a word that starts to apply.
Attracting people
Help make the case for Hagenberg abroad. Our members are the most credible ambassadors this place has, in their own countries and universities.
A voice
Be the place where shared problems get named, worked into concrete proposals, and taken to the people who can actually act on them.
Who runs it
The board
A Romanian and an Austrian, which is roughly the point.
- Endre Szasz-Revai - Founder and President, from Romania
- Max Zösmayr - Co-President, from Austria
Registered as a non-profit association, ZVR 1215188448. The full legal details are on the Impressum.
Who we work with
- Come2Upper Austria - An initiative of Business Upper Austria
- Verein SKILL - Linz — mutual membership and events
- FH OÖ International Office - Hagenberg
- Softwarepark Hagenberg
We aim for mutual membership and mutual access to events with the organisations working in this field, so that one membership goes as far as possible.
Thanks to
A club needs a room, and a room needs paying for. Two organisations put up the money that got IACH off the ground, and a third is paying for the kick-off.
Unternehmensnetzwerk Hagenberg
and its member companies
Stayed behind the idea and supported Endre. They also funded part of getting the club off the ground.
softwarepark.at →Softwarepark Hagenberg
Allianz für Hagenberg
Funded the other part. The scientific director of the Softwarepark, Stephan Winkler was there from the first discussions and carried the idea into FH Hagenberg.
softwarepark-hagenberg.at →Come2Upper Austria
An initiative of Business Upper Austria
They sponsor and organise the kick-off on 4 November with their own funds - the evening the club introduces itself to the Upper Austrian organisations working in this field.
come2upperaustria.com →Real-Treuhand Immobilien
They own the IT-Center
The atrium was meant to be where the Softwarepark meets. We are starting with the lounge - and they opened it to us before there was an association to sign a contract.
realtreuhand.at →Your company here
Sponsorship pays for the space, the food and drinks, and the occasional speaker. We need more of it than we currently have - if your company could help, we would genuinely like to hear from you.
Become a sponsorAnd Max Zösmayr and Klara, who sat down and wrote the association's statutes with me - the unglamorous document that turns an idea into something that legally exists. And Romana of Real-Treuhand, who let us use the rooms back when there was no club to lend them to.