The ECIU’s ‘Startup Discovery Programme’ is a flagship pilot programme that will support student or PhD researcher startup teams, from ECIU member universities, to understand how to innovate, look for new market opportunities, new markets and/or develop their products and propositions.
The programme takes some of the key areas of value-add from traditional startup accelerator programmes and leveraging ECIU member’s best practices for entrepreneurship and innovation while introducing participating startup ventures to the ECIU network and local innovation ecosystems.
This pilot programme will demonstrate the inherent value and expertise, which resides within the ECIU networks at multi- disciplinary and trans-disciplinary levels.
The programme is for student and post-graduate startup teams from all ECIU member universities – students who display strong entrepreneurial characteristics with innovative and scalable ventures but who are still at an early stage of development.
Ventures can be focused on commercial or social impact and focused on any industry market opportunity. Ideally teams should have a minimal viable product or validated concept and retain the ability to design, build and scale their product or service within their own teams. Participating teams should be nominated by their own University.
The programmes will consist of three two-day workshops with the initial introductory workshop hosted by Dublin City University in Ireland with subsequent workshops and a final ‘Demo Day’ to be hosted by Aalborg University in Denmark and Linköping University in Sweden, respectively.
Programme days will cover all areas of startup development leveraging the local expertise from each host ECIU university. Between each stage startups will have access to online materials and content which will further support their development. We also expect that programme participants will learn from one another as they work together.
The programme will conclude with a ‘Demo Day’ taking place at the Venture Arena event in Norrkoping Sweden on 8th November when one of the teams will win the award of the ‘Best ECIU Startup’ with a prize of €2,000 allowing the team to travel to a top European startup conference of their choice.
The first stage of the programme will introduce participating teams to one another, set goals for the programme, followed by workshops on business model innovation how to effectively pitch and understanding the customer journey. Entrepreneur mentors from Dublin will also work with the teams on their ventures.
Stage 2 will have a much deeper look at the Customer Journey and Sales Strategies & Processes. Mentors from Aalborg University will engage teams on their ventures.
During the final stage of the programme participants will learn about Key Partnerships, Resources & Activities and Selling Skills. The programme will conclude at Venture Arena
Norrkoping, Sweden, 8th November 2017
The programme will conclude with a ‘Demo Day’ taking place at the Venture Arena event in Norrkoping Sweden on 8th November when one of the teams will win the award of the ‘Best ECIU Startup’ with a prize of €2,000 allowing the team to travel to a top European startup conference of their choice.
Venture Arena is organised in conjunction with Linköping University, with the aim of stimulating and facilitating the creation of new enterprises and the commercialization of research at the university, and the exchange of knowledge and experience between Linköping University and the surrounding community. For more information, see Venture Arena http://venturearena.se/
Dervilla O’Brien
Business Performance Specialist, Sales Trainer
Bo Christensen
Sales + Startups Expert
Gio Fornell
Innovation Expert
Siofra Flood
Startup finance, legal and operational expert
Christian Nielsen
Business Model Design Expert
Jonas Nilsson
Investment Manager
Theo Lynn
Professor of Digital Business, DCU Business School
Pat McDonagh
Founder CBT/Smartforce, Riverdeep, ThirdForce
Joe Hogan
Founder & CTO @ Openet