Ural Federal University: University Organizes Acceleration Program in Technical Entrepreneurship
Ural Federal University will launch a student acceleration program in the field of technological entrepreneurship. The university’s application, submitted by the university’s Division of Innovative Activities, was approved as part of the University Technological Entrepreneurship Platform, a federal project.
According to Elena Bespamyatnykh, Director of the UrFU Center for Educational Technologies and Staffing Support for Innovative Activities, the student acceleration program will involve 400 students of the university, who will create and test 100 startups. The Digital Industry and New Materials acceleration program will include several formats: hackathons, business games, work with successful trackers and entrepreneurs, and representatives of companies.
“The task of students within this format is to validate the consumer and form the concept of the future product. As a result of participation, we expect the formation of technological leaders, who will be able to get support for their ideas and new products already in the process of studying at the university. In this case each team will have a whole supporting group, represented by experienced trackers and mentors, who will ensure the effective development of students, both themselves and student ideas,” explained Elena Bespamyatnykh.
According to her, the student acceleration program will contribute to the development of the technological entrepreneurship ecosystem at Ural Federal University. The ecosystem will offer students of different courses a continuous trajectory of their career development in promising fields of engineering and technology in the near future.
“This will be an academic and applied intensive for students who are authors of technological startups. The acceleration center is designed for students who already have ideas for innovative projects and want to master the competencies of a technological entrepreneur. Beginner startup creators will come to the acceleration program after receiving a significant amount of knowledge at the “Entrepreneurial Boiling Point”. Thus, the university is creating a kind of factory for the formation of technological entrepreneurs,” said Nadezhda Terlyga, Deputy First Vice Rector of UrFU.