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St. Paul's Elias Rieger wins the GEOnomic Award 2025!
Elias Rieger wins the GEOnomic Award 2025 and receives a city trip worth 1,500 euros for his achievements in Vienna.
St. Paul's Elias Rieger wins the GEOnomic Award 2025!
Elias Rieger, a 7b student at the Stiftsgymnasium in St. Paul, Lavanttal, secured first place in the nationwide GEOnomic competition 2025 with his excellent performance. Over 1,400 AHS students from all over Austria took part in this competition, which creates a connection between economic and geographical education. The online preliminary round took place in March and Elias Rieger is one of the top nine who qualified for the final. This took place on May 16, 2025 at the Austrian Economic Chamber in Vienna, where the participants had to demonstrate their skills in front of an expert jury, reports meinkreis.at.
In the final, Rieger chose one of two topics: “Demography and economy” or “Austria as a business location and foreign trade”. With his in-depth knowledge, clear expression and self-confident demeanor, he convinced the expert jury and secured victory. The performance of all finalists was particularly recognized, including by Melina Schneider, head of the education policy department at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Education and Economics. Education Minister Christoph Wiederkehr emphasized the importance of economic and geographical education in a video message wko.at out.
Awards and recognition
For his impressive victory, Elias Rieger receives a city trip worth 1,500 euros. The awards were presented by prominent representatives, including Doris Wagner from the Federal Ministry of Education and Georg Konetzy from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, Energy and Tourism. In addition to Elias Rieger, other talented students were also in the spotlight.
| Place | name | School |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Elias Rieger | St. Paul Collegiate High School (Carinthia) |
| 2. | Johannes Kellermann | BG/BRG Rohrbach (Upper Austria) |
| 3. | Jan Wenhardt | Neusiedl am See high school (Burgenland) |
| 4. | Sven Patrick Wimmer | Don Bosco High School Ebreichsdorf-Unterwaltersdorf (Lower Austria) |
| 5. | Kilian Ledermann | BG/BRG Horn (Lower Austria) |
| 6. | shared by Aron Bayer, Leon Frieß, Gervin Schwarz and Raoul Tomovski | |
Variety of topics in the competition
The finalists' topics ranged from demographic developments in Austria to Austria's role as an open economy. The effects of these developments on the pension system and the export structure as well as the trade balance in an international context were also discussed. The GEOnomic competition, which has been taking place since the 2007/2008 school year, is organized by the Austrian Economic Chamber in partnership with the ministries of education as well as the ministries of economics, energy and tourism wko.at described in detail.