The first edition of the Start-UPFlama program is already underway, which supports the creation of innovative companies at UPF. This initiative, which aims to help students and alumni of the University to make their business ideas come true, has selected the 12 projects that will access intensive training at the UPF Barcelona School of Management.
The 25 members of the chosen teams will participate, starting this week, in a three-month course on key aspects of entrepreneurship, such as financial management, marketing, negotiation, sustainable impact or commercial presentations.
The Start-UPFlama jury has chosen the 12 projects that have passed to the training phase from a total of 31 applications, with 48 participants, who had submitted to the call. All these groups have been able to follow, since the end of September, an online course in nanoMOOC format that has helped them to devise their value propositions and conceive their business models following the Business Model Canvas.
The dozen of selected projects, once they have completed the training stage at UPF Barcelona School of Management, will be eligible for up to six financial support packages to cover expenses related to the creation of their companies. Thus, they will be able to obtain a maximum of 3,000 euros to invest in incubation spaces or in services such as mentoring. In addition, they will have the support of the program to carry out the formalities of incorporation as companies.
“Participation success”
“The successful participation of the first call of Start-UPFlama confirms the motivation that exists in the university community to innovate and provide new solutions that help us prosper as a society”, as values the vice-rector for Knowledge Transfer of UPF, Eulalia de Christmas. From his point of view, the projects participating in the program “have a unique opportunity to gain knowledge and support to help them boost their business ideas.”
Start-UPFlama welcomes projects from any sector promoted as a team or individually. Students who are studying a degree, master or doctorate at UPF and alumni of any study at the University who have obtained their degrees during the last four academic years (from 2017 to this part) can participate. It is also open to other candidates, as long as they are part of teams where at least half of the members are UPF students or alumni of the last four years
Business ideas
These are the names and proposals of the 12 projects that will enter the intensive training phase:
Acta Diürna : platform to share, consume, value and validate journalistic content.
Ahcarya : app dedicated to yoga that corrects users’ movements using artificial intelligence.
Altés : platform to put clients in contact with designers and artisans to make personalized furniture.
ARIA (Antibiotic Resistance Inference Array) : technologies that combine artificial intelligence and synthetic biology to combat antibiotic resistance.
BluEye : computer vision system to increase the safety of swimming pools.
Building for All : affordable housing for people in a situation of social exclusion.
Lemon AI : platform equipped with artificial intelligence to optimize the positioning of content to internet search engines.
Food To Feed (F2F) – Processing surplus and food waste to create new products.
PictoLex : creation of legal documents in comic format, using simple language and with full legal validity.
Rewind : reusable packaging for companies that deliver products at home.
Som BCN : platform for buying tickets for leisure and cultural activities in Barcelona.
Vidaanostic : artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality technologies to help doctors and companies to carry out simulations and test products.