The Inova Unicamp Innovation Agency is open for free registration for the Unicamp 2023 Challenge. Undergraduate and postgraduate students and everyone else interested in entrepreneurship and innovation with science and technology can participate in the business modeling competition at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp).
The 13th edition of the Unicamp Challenge will be held entirely online and will distribute up to R$63 in cash prizes – for the winners in the General and Socio-Environmental Impact categories – and in acceleration services for startups and scholarships in professional development programs for winners and finalists of the competition.
As Registration can be done online until March 30 on the Desafio Unicamp 2023 website or until places for the competition are exhausted. To participate, you must be over 18 years old and form a group of 3 to 5 people. It is not necessary to have a link with Unicamp.
Two-step registration
Registration for the Unicamp 2023 Challenge is done in two stages. Firstly, the group needs to choose up to three university technology options, among the 50 profiles available on the competition website, and elect a representative to complete the general registration form with the name and email of all team participants.
In the second stage, each team member receives an email from the organization and must respond to the individual registration form to confirm the team's overall participation. This year, each technology can only be worked on by one team. The sooner the group signs up, the more available profiles they will have to choose from.
The championship's main objective is encourage business development based on technologies developed in Unicamp research and protected, from the point of view of intellectual property, by the University's Innovation Agency. The challenge is to think of a sustainable market strategy or one that presents a socio-environmental impact for the chosen patent or software.
Capabilities and opportunities
The online competition lasts four months and stands out for the training it offers. Participants in the Unicamp 2023 Challenge will have contact with the Lean Canvas Methodology and academic mentoring and professionals from the national and international market.
Content will also be shared on Intellectual Property, Technology Transfer and pitch training – a technique used to present ideas and win over potential investors – for the final presentation of the business model in front of an evaluation panel.
The competition allows the six finalist teams to leave the event with a competitive business model for the market. The winners in the General and Socio-Environmental Impact categories also receive R$3 for each participant offered by Inova and Educar Foundation.
Winners and finalists also receive the possibility of acceleration with the Speed Accelerator, free access to professional development program training offered by FM2S and exemption from submitting projects to the Unicamp Technology-Based Business Incubator (Incamp).
About the Unicamp 2023 Challenge
The competition is the University's main entrepreneurship promotion program and is organized by Innovates Unicamp. In 12 years, the Unicamp Challenge has trained more than 3.480 people. A last edition of the competition, in 2022, had the participation of 181 registrants from the five regions of the country – an unprecedented representation in the program.
The expectation of the 13th edition is to repeat the degree of regional variety and, at the same time, increase diversity within the teams. The Unicamp 2023 Challenge regulations provide that groups marked by a heterogeneous composition score higher when delivering the first activity. The criteria are gender diversity, declared color or race, nationality and person with a disability.
The sponsors of the 13th edition of the Unicamp Challenge are: Educar Foundation, FM2S – Education and Consulting, ClarkeModet, Eldorado Institute, Speed Accelerator, Activy.
The supporters of the 13th edition of the Unicamp Challenge are: Campinas Tech, Campinas Forum Foundation, Entrepreneurial League, Campinas Center, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Municipal Secretariat for Economic Development, Technology and Innovation of Campinas, Unicamp Scientific and Technological Park e Incamp.
Article originally published on the Inova Unicamp Innovation Agency website.
