Congratulations to our students Bea and Betty (14th intake) who won – together with three other students from TU Wien – the award for Technical Excellence within the Tech Design Sprint competition. The Tech Design Sprint 2025 took place from May 8–10 at the AK Bildungszentrum in Vienna. The event was organized by the Center for Technology & Society (CTS) in collaboration with AK Wien, and brought together interdisciplinary student teams under the theme: “Exploring Deep Tech for a Fair and Sustainable World”.

The group of Bea and Betty worked on Challenge #5: Energy. They designed an educational game called “Smooth Operators” about energy distribution in Vienna that included:

• a map-based interface using real city locations;
• mini-games that teach players how to, for instance, balance the electricity grid and avoid both overload and underuse;
• dilemma cards based on real trade-offs in sustainability, user satisfaction, and available resources;
• and exploration challenges that encourage players to engage with the city and reflect on energy use.

Since this was a 3-day sprint focused on design thinking, they didn’t develop the full game, but instead created a complete concept and mockups.

The idea is for the game to be embedded in the official website of Wiener Netze, the company responsible for electricity distribution in Vienna. It would use players’ answers to the dilemmas to reflect on the real-life decision-making of the grid operator. In the future, it could also offer space for players to share and discuss these decisions, supporting public awareness and engagement around energy topics.

Team members:
Beatriz Oliveira de Carvalho and Betty Selena Castro Benavides (MSc Cartography) | Charlotte Melzer, Theo März and Sofija Radojevic (other study programmes TU Wien).