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HSE Startup Cup: How to Turn an Idea into an Operational Business

HSE Startup Cup: How to Turn an Idea into an Operational Business

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The HSE Business Incubator is calling for applications for the HSE Startup Cup for the third time. This is a competition of projects by HSE University students and employees, as well as students of the HSE Lyceum. Registration is open until April 29.

The HSE Startup Cup has always attracted a lot of applications. The best projects get an opportunity to fight for the main prizes: 50,000 roubles for start-up development, participation in the HSE Business Accelerator, and prizes from the competition’s partners. Projects may be in any field, from environmental protection and agriculture to game development and machine learning.

Eligible teams must have at least one participant who is a student or employee of HSE University or the HSE Lyceum. Since the majority of the competition takes place online, participants from all HSE campuses (Moscow, St Petersburg, Perm and Nizhny Novgorod) are invited. Teams choose a competition category depending on the stage of their project. This year, the competition welcomes start-ups that have an MVP, as well as those still at the idea stage. Participants will get an excellent opportunity to boost their projects. In the first stage, they work in their teams, and all members have access to the HSE Business Incubator’s educational course and start-up community. They will have two weeks to improve their projects based on peer reviews, and will prepare a video pitch.

The best projects from the first stage will progress to the next one. There, participants will continue working under the supervision of invited market experts, use trackers for progress assessment, and participate in member-only events hosted by the HSE Business Incubator.

The strongest teams will go through to the finals, where they will pitch before a jury of investors and business representatives and compete for the main prizes. The winners of the ‘Idea’ and ‘MVP’ categories will receive money prizes to develop their start-ups.

Invited members of the assessment committee include:

 Anatoly Valetov, Chairman of the Board, Head of the ‘Moscow Innovation Cluster’ Foundation, Founder and Advisor to the President, World Alliance of International Financial Centres (WAIFC)

Nina Feodosiadi, Head of the HSE Business Incubator, expert in entrepreneurship and start-ups.

Take part

See also:

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In 2011, HSE graduate, Irina Demina, launched the startup ‘Button For Life’ (Ru: Кнопка жизни) - a round-the-clock service for elderly people and people with disabilities. Since 2016, Irina has graduated from three programmes offered by the Centre for Continuing Education at HSE’s Faculty of Computer Science and is planning to do more. Irina told the HSE news service about how the knowledge she acquired has helped her to reach new heights in business.

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On March 15, 2017, HSE hosted the annual Start-up of the Year awards ceremony, organized by the HSE Business Incubator. Five projects featuring unique online and offline technologies won awards.

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The digital age is opening up more and more opportunities for some of the most unbelievable startups imaginable – startups for which ideas and a drive to conquer new business territories take precedent. For Vitaly Aleksandrov, an HSE alumnus and the founder and head of the studio Out of Cloud, this territory was email marketing. Below, he tells Success Builder how correct distribution methods differ from spam, how to write meaningful letter, and whether a student is able to make money off of scholarships.

500,000 roubles

is the maximum grant amount that winners are able to receive in a competition sponsored by the Fund for Innovative Enterprise Support.

HSE Allocates Funds to Support Innovative Projects

From March 2, applications will be accepted for the Fund for Innovative Enterprise Support competition, which is to be held for the sixth time. Winning projects will receive from 150,000 to 500,000 rubles in support.

More Social Projects at Startup of the Year

On December 17 the awards ceremony for Startup of the Year 2014 took place at the Technopolis Moscow congress centre. Of the 350 projects entered for this prestigious prize, 7 winners received the coveted statuettes - 6 for the different nominations and one from the audience. Among the winning teams there are HSE students and graduates.