First Place for the “Assist Heidi” Course at the Profformance Teacher Award

The internationally oriented course “ASSIST HEIDI – Designing and Implementing Assistive Tools for People with Disabilities” at UAS Technikum Wien was awarded 1st place in the PROFFORMANCE Teacher Award 2024/25 in the category “Inclusion and Diversity”.
The award ceremony took place online on June 4, 2025.  During the event, outstanding teaching initiatives from the European higher education area were honored and 16 out of 161 submissions were awarded prizes.

Co-design and international teamwork for more inclusion

The award-winning course focuses on interdisciplinary and international collaboration to develop individual assistive technologies. Students work in mixed, international teams with people with disabilities – not for them, but with them. This results in tailor-made solutions that address real needs while promoting awareness of accessibility, diversity and digital skills.”There are still too many people who don’t have access to affordable assistive technology,” explains the team behind the course. This is precisely where ASSIST HEIDI comes in – with a service-learning approach that not only strengthens technical skills, but also social responsibility.

Interdisciplinary team, supported by the City of Vienna

The course was created as an internationalization offer for part-time students, is held in English and is attended by ERASMUS students and FHTW students alike.  In the 2024 summer semester edition, participants from eight different countries worked together on projects. The implementation was made possible by funding from the project “Inclusion International” of the City of Vienna (project no. 33-02).

The award-winning team consists of:
Susanne Buchner-Sabathy, Martin Deinhofer, Florian Ellinger, Oliver Klein, Sarah Langer, Erich Schmid, Alija Sabic and Natascha Toman .

Making commitment visible – rethinking learning

The award for ASSIST HEIDI not only recognizes an innovative teaching project, but also makes a contribution to long-term change in the education sector: towards more participation, international cooperation and technological inclusion.

In addition to ASSIST HEIDI, the projects INNklusion (University of Innsbruck) and We Teach Together! (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary) were also honored.

Further links

Further Profformance resources