Student entrepreneurs compete in NovaUCD’s 2022 Start-up Programme
Posted 25 May, 2022
Ten early-stage ventures have been selected to take part in the 2022 NovaUCD Student Enterprise competition, an intensive four week mentoring programme for budding entrepreneurs.
A total of 23 participants will compete this year, developing a wide range of business ideas including sustainable fashion, event management, household services, circular economy, human resources and hospitality.
Students participating in the 2022 programme are from the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics, UCD Lochlann Quinn School of Business, (opens in a new window)UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and the (opens in a new window)UCD Innovation Academy, and 50% of the participants are international students.
“Over the next four weeks we will be supporting the student entrepreneurs as they begin the process of converting their innovative business ideas into early-stage ventures,” said Tom Flanagan, UCD Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation.
“Our objective with the NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition is to give the students the knowledge and confidence to continue to develop and grow their ventures into start-ups competing on a national and international stage.”
The NovaUCD Student Enterprise competition, now in its 8th year, is run by NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at University College Dublin, as a framework to support undergraduate and postgraduate students who want to work together to develop and grow start-up companies.
Its aim is to assist entrepreneurial 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.
The four week mentoring programme, which uses the Lean Startup and Business Model Canvas approach, includes a series of online structured workshops and interactive workshops delivered by Rohan Perera and Raomal Perera, Lean Disruptor.
Topics such as, customer development; value proposition; working in teams; design thinking; prototyping, environment mapping; financial planning and effective fundraising and pitching, are covered.
At the final workshop each participating venture will pitch to a judging panel, and an overall winning team will be selected and awarded a €5,000 cash prize.
The second placed team will be awarded a €3,000, and the third placed team €2,000. The remaining seven teams each receive €1,000 for completing the programme.
Over 120 students and over 50 early-stage ventures have completed the NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition to date.
Former participants include Charlie Gleeson, who took part in the 2019 competition with an e-scooter business idea, which he has since developed into Zipp Mobility, which has raised €2.1 million in funding and operates in multiple cities in the UK and Poland.
The company has recently announced the launch of a new shared e-bike service in Dublin in partnership with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
The sponsors of the 2022 NovaUCD Student Enterprise Competition are, AIB, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers and Xilinx.
By: David Kearns, Digital Journalist / Media Officer, UCD University Relations (with materials from Micéal Whelan, UCD Research and Innovation)
