Learn
What ?
From April to early June 2024, students or student teams working on entrepreneurial ideas within the sectors of manufacturing, mobility, industry, circular economy, food, or health can join this international program to further develop their ideas.
Teams will create a business model canvas, network with motivated students and startups from all over Europe and pitch their idea to industry experts to win rewards and prepare for startup creation! They also will receive an official certificate of participation.
Start for Future ?
Start For Future is a collaboration for open entrepreneurship, co-creation, and innovation supported by more than 20 European universities, affiliated partners, and the European Institute for Innovation & Technology (EIT).
In other words, it is a European entrepreneurial ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship with a focus on students eager to learn and devise solutions for today’s and tomorrow’s problems. The Learn program forms a first step towards turning an idea into a successful business for the top teams.
The Start For Future Learn programme empowers student entrepreneurship by challenging students to:
- think with an entrepreneurial mindset
- develop innovative solutions to specific challenges
- clearly communicate their problem and solution to international peers
- pitch to international EIT industry experts
- discover the entrepreneurial ecosystem
- All students who wish to learn about Entrepreneurship and gain entrepreneurial skills.
- Students or student teams with or without ideas are welcome to join. However, those without an idea will need to come up with one by the second session.
- Students or student teams with projects based on a course or students with personal projects are also welcome.
- The idea should fit within one of the following themes: Energy, Food, Health, Circular Economy, Manufacturing, Mobility or deep tech in general
- Your field of study does not matter.
Students that join Start For Future Learn enjoy a number of benefits:
- connect with a huge network of international teams, incubators & startups
- pitch your idea to industry experts and get valuable feedback
- receive an EIT certificate for participation
- pitch in the grand final and win rewards
- kickstart your idea and make it ready for incubation & startup creation in the next semester
- If you want to join Start For Future, pick a challenge that fits within a challenge area in energy, mobility, manufacturing, circular economy, food or health.
You can check the below challenge areas for inspiration, or formulate your own challenge based on personal experience:
Looking for more concrete examples? Detailed challenges of some of our partners are linked below.
You can pick one of them, or just use them as inspiration:
- How do we improve the mobility experience of students on their way to campus?
- How do we improve efficiency and reduce cost of distribution for short supplychain initiatives?
- How do we digitise, forecast or automate monitoring and pick-up of waste and litter in public spaces in a cost effective way?
- …
Learn schedule
From the 4th of April until the 3rd of June Learn teams participate in 5 International sessions, for a total of 7.5h international exchange. These sessions are always on monday.
The sessions will be online video conferences (Zoom), and follow the below schedule. Your team can choose to be in the early or the late session for the entire track.
8 April: Learn Kick-off & Action Field Discovery
12:00-13:30 CET
15 April: Project team & peer feedback
12:00-13:15 CET or 16:00-17:15 CET
29 April: Tips, Tricks & Startup stories
12:00-13:15 CET or 16:00-17:15 CET
13 May: business model review with coaches & peers
12:00-13:15 CET or 16:00-17:15 CET
3 June: Final pitch & rewards ceremony
15:30 - 17:30 CET
Project complete: what's next?
Pitching your idea at thefinal presentations is not necessarily the end! Motivated teams with a strong, viable project can choose to take their idea further during the Match & Start phase and eventually join the International Open Incubator, such as Expedition DO!.