FriJun082018

C4E Newsletter June 2018 - Volume 1


It's been a very  active Spring Semester at the Centre for Entrepreneurship. Here are the highlights and a glimpse at what Summer 2018 has in store.


  Editor: I. Tsioutsioumi 
v.1
 

Student Innovators Competition (SINN2018) - May 4 2018

Eleven teams of UCY students presented their ideas in front of six judges from industry and academia during SINN2018, the first pitching competition organized by the Centre for Entrepreneurship (C4E) and the Department of Business and Public Administration of the University of Cyprus. The Student Innovators competition (SINN2018)  which was held on Friday May 4 2018 is designed for early stage and empirical business ideas with a strong innovation potential and/or creative twist. The finalists were selected out of 31 teams who submitted their ideas to the competition. Students came from the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Business and Public Administration and Computer Science. Most teams have developed their ideas during the Entrepreneurship courses of the Department of Business and Public Administration and in seminars and workshops offered by the Centre for Entrepreneurship. Find out more
 
 

C4E Elective Courses ΚΕΠ101 and ΚΕΠ102

During the Spring Semester of 2018, C4E run two courses on entrepreneurship: Lecture Series on "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" (ΚΕΠ101) and Group Project in Entrepreneurship (ΚΕΠ102)The courses were well attended and provided the opportunity for students to follow experienced speakers from the Cyprus and regional ecosystem  giving seminars on Key Financial Principles, IP law / Commercializing IP, Introduction to Innovation and Entrepreneurship, How to create and manage your startup business, the Value Proposition Canvas and more. More information here


Makerspace project proposal by UCY students 

Within the course of ΚΕΠ 102: Special Seminars in Entrepreneurship, three students have worked as a team to make a proposal for the design and organization of the C4E Makerspace. The students are Efthymiou Marina from Department of Architecture, Koliarou Evanthia from the Department of Economics and Karapatzaki Paraskevi from Department of Accounting and Finance. The team have done an in-depth work that included research and a questionnaire to examine the needs of the UCY student community in regards with the Makerspace as well and what the information they had about it. Their primary goal was to design a functional space (makerspace) and arrange the placement of every tool, machinery and activity. The team presented a comprehensive proposal with a floor plan design and an implementation plan that included: Makespace operation and development plan, a budget proposal and a new logo.

 

   
 

 
UCY team in 10 finalists of the MITEF Greece Startup Competition
 
AJM Medi-caps with Julio Georgiou Associate Professor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is in the 10 finalists of the MITEF Greece Startup Competition! AJM Medi-caps concerns the invention of a smart-pill solution that screens both the small and large intestine for cancer; this is a result of European cooperation research project involving the University of Cyprus. AJM Medi-caps won the 2nd prize at the IEF2017 competition in November 2017 and free participation in a three-month business skills accelerator program offered by MITEF Greece in Athens, to the semi-finalists of the annual MITEF Greece Startup Competition. The team attended the intensive 3 month accelerator program and was successfully qualified to the final.
 

 HEInnovate case study on C4E - May 15 2018
 

C4E is featured in the new HEInnovate study published by Empirica, Bonn, Germany. HEInnovate is an initiative of the European Commission, DG Education and Culture and the OECD LEED Forum, and supported by a panel of six independent experts. HEInnovate is a free self-assessment tool for all types of higher education institution. This case study was prepared by Dr. Stefan Lilischkis from Empirica, through collection and analysis of broad documentation about C4E and interviews with key representatives from C4E. The status of information provided in this case study is December 2017.
The full report is published here 

 

 
Focus on  Intellectual Property - Spring 2018

C4E Organised two training seminars by two leading experts in Intellectual Property (IP) Law and Intellectual Property commercialisation: Dr Tatiani Synodinou, Associate Professor at the Department of Law, University of Cyprus, and Mr Nick Kounoupias, a UK solicitor and acknowledged pioneer in the  international IP world.
IP law, practice and procedures Commercializing the IP - February 7 2018
Nick Kounoupias, a UK solicitor
- How to identify, monetise, manage and protect IP
- Understanding the Different Forms of Intellectual Property – protecting each category
- Protecting Trade Secrets-confidential information using Non-Disclosure Agreements
- What to watch out in IPR provisions in contracts
More information here
Intellectual property law and entrepreneurship - April 25 2018 
Tatiani Synodinou, Associate Professor at the Department of Law
Development of basic concepts of copyright with emphasis on issues related to entrepreneurs (conditions of protection, joint creation, works of wage earners)
More information here

 

 

 
Towards a Business Model: The Value Proposition Canvas - May 18 2018
by ALBA Business School
 

Alexis Komselis Director of ALBA Hub for Entrepreneurship and Development in ALBA Graduate Business School at The American College of Greece and VentureGarden Athens Director was at the University of Cyprus and gave a lecture and a workshop on The Value Proposition canvas. The first day of the training was the 'Class' on Identifying and analyzing the ‘Value Proposition’ as a tool that helps early stage entrepreneurs address this challenge and link it to their overall  business model.  The session addressed customer discovery tools and mechanisms that can help entrepreneurs understand what their potential customers need and how they can best communicate it to their customers. The second day where at the Workshop, teams had the opportunity to work on their own ideas/projects, discuss and present the value proposition. Alexis Komselis said that what he enjoyed most about the training was the commitment of the people and variety of ideas  For extended information follow this link

 

 

 UCY Innovation Management Unit
 

This new Unit is active since January 2018 and functions under the Research Support Service of the University of Cyprus managing the Innovation related activities of the University and the commercialisation of the University’s exploitable research results. The activities of the unit span from the identification and evaluation of potentially valuable intellectual property, as early as from the development of research, the appropriate protection and selection of the best mode of exploitation and the transfer of technology and knowledge to the business and industrial sectors and society. Exploitation can be done, inter alia, through:  a) research contracts and the provision of specialised high added value services to companies and organizations, b) licensing of intellectual property to third parties and c) creation of spin-off and start-up firms.
The unit collaborates closely with C4E for the provision of acceleration and incubation services for the creation of University spin-off firms as well as for awareness actions and the provision of education services to the university community regarding the protection and commercialization of intellectual property. In the next coming months, the Innovation Management Unit will undertake the process for recording the exploitable research results / IP of UCY and will start planning one-to- one visits to research centers, labs and teams.  This activity will be performed within the framework of the cooperation with C4E and will be directed by Dr. Anastasia Constantinou Head of the Unit. 

 

 C4E Young Scholars 
 
C4E Young Scholars are students of the University of Cyprus, who are selected for the last two years within an internal competition to receive a scholarship for participation in the European Innovation Academy (EIA) an extreme entrepreneurship accelerator program. EIA educational programs are jointly developed with professionals of world class partner universities and companies: UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Google and many others. The 2018 scholarships were selected through the SINN2018 competition and awarded to Elena Kelliri from the Department of Chemistry, Odysseus Economides from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Elena Kouttoukou from the Department of Computer Science. The students are . The scholarships are funded by the University of Cyprus with the generous support of the Aegean Airlines. More information about C4E Young Scholars can be found here.
 

 

Daniil Sourianos – C4E Young Scholar, EIA 2017 Participant

M.Sc Electrical Engineer Student (University of Cyprus)
Young Entrepreneur Global Winner of NASA SpaceApps Hackathlon 2017
CEO of TraCar.

 
Giouliana Kalaitzidou – C4E Young Scholar, EIA 2017 Participant

University of Cyprus Department of Computer Science Graduate 2017
Founder of Logouconn
Software Developer at GCC Computers

 

 

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