Competitions are a great way for unlocking potential and finding the right opportunity to propel your idea, your career, or your business. The Cyprus Entrepreneurship Competition from the Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Cyprus does exactly that; it aims to offer a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs, innovators and business-oriented people the chance to kick off their ideas and take them to the next level.

Talking to last year finalists we had the chance to gain an insight of their journey and experience during the acceleration program of the competition that is designed to train, expose, and educate participants on what it takes to develop, test and market their business idea.

Being last’ year CyEC2020 1st prize winner, Malloc an innovative Cypriot startup specializing in privacy and digital security, had the opportunity to compete on a global scale and gain further exposure and funding through their admission at the world’s most prestigious startup accelerators, the Y Combinator, which is not only fantastic news for the brilliant all female founders but for Cyprus and the CyEC in general, by contributing to the culture development and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Cyprus.

In an interview for the C4E, the company’s CEO, Dr. Maria Terzi, revealed that the CyEC2020, has contributed to the business development of the already established startup, through the offered seminars and workshops of the acceleration program, that helped them become more knowledgeable on business strategy, marketing, and commercialization.

Most importantly according to Dr. Terzi, it provided the opportunity to benefit from the extensive expertise of the mentor’s network of the CyEC, who are not only leading industry figures and academics but also great mentors and role models. This interaction and weekly meetings with the team’s assigned mentors, helped Malloc gain valuable feedback, refine their business plan, get more visibility, find support, and meet key connections in the specific domain, which not only contributed to the team’ success by winning the competition but also achieve some of the company’s future goals.

In her final remarks Dr. Terzi’s advice to all entrepreneurs and to the future CyEC participants is summarized in three key points: 1) dream big, 2) launch and test your idea fast and 3) seize every available opportunity.

We thank Dr. Terzi for her invaluable insight, and we wish her team every success in all future endeavours.

To find out more about Malloc visit: https://www.mallocprivacy.com/.