On December 20, 2022, as part of an extended meeting of the FinU Academic Council, a solemn ceremony of awarding the winners and prize-winners of the FinU and PJSC ROSBANK competition “Create Your Own Startup” – an innovative project aimed at developing and launching student startups in sustainable development.
The competition finalists were welcomed by the Rector of the FinU Stanislav Prokofiev, thanked the students for their creativity and activity, noted the relevance of the submitted projects, the breadth of their topics and their study’s quality.
“Team experience and project work is an important component of the educational process. The University mission, among other things, is to form entrepreneurial skills and competencies of students, and support projects in youth entrepreneurship. Most of the startups presented have a clear life implementation, and this is very significant,” Stanislav Prokofiev said.
The Rector expressed gratitude to the Rosbank representatives for the long-term fruitful cooperation and added that the FinU will continue to support youth entrepreneurship development.
Elena Kozhadey, Director of the Communications and Advertising Department of Rosbank, also addressed the contestants. In her welcoming speech, she congratulated the finalists on achieving significant results, wished them not to stop there and continue working on startups, form the necessary connections with representatives of government agencies and business, expressed gratitude to the FinU for supporting students’ projects and the opportunity to hold a competition at the University.
The competition participants were more than 90 project teams that have developed startups in social support for citizens, conscious consumption, the development of environmentally important industries, and the introduction of digital technologies.
Seven project teams were shortlisted into the final:
· OMELA
· BakeUP
· ATLANT
· Smetana
· Device for voice control of the elevator (Ustrojstvo dlja golosovogo upravlenija liftom)
· Foodsharing
· Freshman
The teams were trained under the additional educational program “Startup: from Idea to Business” (72 hours), worked with experts in the startup launch and presented the results of their work to the expert council members, who determined the winners.
According to the results of the expert jury’s assessments, the teams of startup projects became the competition winners:
The project team members are working on an environmental service for the distribution of food products that retail and catering organizations do not have time to implement.
The project team is developing a product capable of assessing the occurrence risks of the factors leading to damage to flattering arrays, their economic assessment.
Members of the project team are working on a device for elevator voice control, which will allow you to control the elevator with voice commands instead of buttons.
The competition finalists received grants in the amount of 300,000 rubles to launch startup projects, and three winners of the competition received a cash prize from Rosbank: 150,000 rubles for first place, 100,000 rubles for second place, 50,000 rubles for third place.
Summing up the event, the experts noted the importance of developing the small business sector and supporting student initiatives and projects in this area.
