Student entrepreneurs begin four-week accelerator programme at UCD

NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition returns for 11th year

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Image: NovaUCD

Twenty-two students representing 11 early-stage ventured have begun an intensive four-week accelerator programme for student entrepreneurs.

Now in its 11th year, the NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition brings together ventures from sustainable agriculture, robotics, edtech, smart sensing systems for healthcare, sustainable fashion and music.

A €3,000 NovaUCD One to Watch Prize, sponsored by Terra Solar, is available for the overall winning venture at the end of this year’s competition.

 
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The accelerator programme is run by NovaUCD, the innovation and start-up hub, as a framework to support UCD undergraduate and postgraduate students who want to work together to develop and grow start-up companies.

The aim of the accelerator is to assist the students in refining their start-up ideas through a series of structured workshops, including taught content from industry experts, interactive workshops, regular mentoring and pitching sessions.

Caroline Gill, innovation pathway manager at NovaUCD, said: “Over the next month we will be supporting the participating student entrepreneurs as they begin the process of accelerating their business ideas into early-stage start-ups. A key objective of this annual competition is to provide the students with the skills, the confidence, and the opportunity to further develop their ideas and hopefully in time launch their start-ups in Ireland and even internationally.”

The accelerator includes a series of structured and interactive workshops on topics such as, customer development; value proposition; working in teams; design thinking; prototyping; environment mapping; financial planning and effective fundraising; and pitching.

At a final workshop, to be held in late-June, the participating ventures will pitch to a judging panel.

More than 80 early-stage ventures and some 200 students have completed NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competitions to date.

TechCentral Reporters

Read More: NovaUCD start-ups