About the theme
The educational programme and entrepreneurial contest: Mindspace University, launched on March 20 2023, when the opening ceremony was held. The 5th cycle's theme was Life Sciences and covered various sub-themes of health sciences such as clinical trials, bioinformatics, digital health systems, digital diagnostics, and many other subjects. At the same time, some sessions were dedicated exclusively to entrepreneurship.
About the programme
During the first phase, 15 training sessions were held through the Learnworlds platform by renowned professionals in the field, mainly entrepreneurs, researchers, company executives and professors from various European countries and the USA. A total of 83 participants registered for the programme, the majority of them being Greeks.
The most significant percentage of participants are undergraduate, postgraduate or doctoral students, while some have recently graduated and are already active in business, even as startup founders.
On Monday, May 15, the second phase of Mindspace University: Life Sciences began. This phase also constitutes the business cycle of the programme. After an evaluation held by KEMEL (Center of Volunteer Business Managers of Greece) members regarding the business ideas submitted by nine groups, six managed to pass to the next phase of the programme. The criteria on which the business ideas were evaluated were the Business Model Canvases and Business Analysis each team had conducted. Teams consisted of 2-3 people.
In the second phase of Mindspace University: Life Sciences, teams had the opportunity to refine their business ideas further and prepare their pitches through one-on-one mentoring meetings through The Founderhood platform. Specifically, the mentors participating in this phase of the program were Anna Nesterova, Georgios Dafoulas, Ioannis Sotiriou, Maria Gazoulis, Marina Moustakas, Alexa Polysidis and Don McIntyre, as well as members of KEMEL. During that time, a workshop was held regarding the preparation for idea pitching. The Second phase took part until June 11.
Slide to see all the mentors
The ideas
The teams that qualified for the second phase of Mindspace University were:
SCENTIPD: Their idea focuses on creating an innovative diagnostic test for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.
Binnovators: Their concept connects businesses and research labs, showcasing and categorizing life science research to facilitate knowledge sharing, innovation and competitiveness in the private sector
STK: Their idea is for a secure mobile app that organizes various medical records into a unified digital profile, simplifying access and allowing users to empower healthcare professionals for improved decision-making and health outcomes.
Brainiacs: Their concept focuses on a smart service dog vest that helps people with disabilities in emergencies, improves efficiency, raises awareness and promotes the integration of people with disabilities and of their service-dogs into society.
BES: Their business idea provides a real-time tracking solution for emergency department wait times, improving healthcare with simplicity, convenience, cost-effectiveness and customization.
VitalitySpark: Their concept is a wearable biosensor device that uses artificial intelligence to monitor molecular biomarker profiles in real-time.
The winners
On Monday, June 12, the finals were live-streamed on YouTube. The six teams pitched their ideas in front of a board of judges.
SCIENTIPD won first place in Mindspace University's 5th cycle, taking home a 10,000€ cash prize provided by The People's Trust to kick start their business and free accounting services by indima.gr.
STK came in second place and won one free participation for a future Mindspace Trip to the USA.
In third place, Binnovators, won a 30% discount on a future Mindspace Trip to the USA.
You can watch the finals below
Official GR Report:
Copywriting by: Aglaia Orfanidou, Dimitris Rigas
Copyediting by: Dimitris Rigas
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