Petro Mohyla National University became the basic for the creation of the GCIP Regional Accelerator

Applications for participation in the clean technology project started on July 1. Petro Mohyla National University became a center for future ideas.

 

The coordinator of this event in the region was Anna Alekseeva, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Senior Lecturer, Department of Ecology, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Admissions Committee of Petro Mohyla National University, head of the educational center “Crimea – Ukraine” at the Petro Mohyla National University. The project assistant is Diana Krysinska, a lecturer at the Department of Ecology and Nature Management of the Petro Mohyla National University.

 

Interview of Anna Alekseeva about the project, about the creation and further significance of the accelerator for Petro Mohyla National University.

Why did Mohylyanka become the basis for the project?


5 universities were selected to host pilot Regional Accelerators on their basis – Ivano-Frankivsk, Slovyansk, Sumy, Kherson and Mykolayiv. The national accelerator is, of course, Kyiv.

A competition was held. We [the university] applied for participation at the UNIDO headquarters in Vienna. Our application was selected among many other free economic zones.


How will it be useful in the future for the university?


We have now launched this accelerator as a Regional GCIP program, a global initiative to support clean technologies and support small and medium-sized businesses. This project is funded by UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization). We are very honored that we were selected to create an accelerator based on the university. What are the benefits for us? First of all, it’s grant money, it’s $ 30,000, which will be financed by our accelerator. Secondly, we do not set a very narrow task – benefit for our university, and on the contrary, for the region, the Nikolaev area.

 

We aim to gather the innovative potential we have in order to solve regional problems in the field of CleanTech (clean technologies). These can be not only narrowly focused projects that will focus on “clean” technologies, they can cover an even larger circle – these are the global goals of the UN. The purpose of the project is to develop technologies not only at the expense of the National Accelerators (Kyiv), but also to attract the support of the regions. The university is a platform for uniting entrepreneurs, local governments and scientists-inventors (these can be not only inventors from the university, but also from the whole region). But our teachers can be both experts and mentors of this project, because the first task for us is to select the best teams and teach them how to promote a startup project, their innovative ideas to the market so that they work.


Do you already have any ideas? From students or teachers?


Applications started only on July 1. There are no applications yet, but we can say that our computer startups already have some ideas. The deadline for applications is August 10.

We do not focus only on our students. We accept any innovative ideas and startup projects that are environmentally friendly. Participants can even be students, but with good ideas. The main thing is an idea. And we [the university] are a center of support.


And what exactly does the university do? What is its function?


The university is a platform for combining three components (science, business and local government). We need to unite them to promote new ideas. We help authors of innovative ideas on the way from the idea to building a business model; join the creation of professional presentations of startup projects; give the opportunity to establish contacts with specialists and managers in a specific field; promote the search for investors, industry consultants; in establishing contacts with local enterprises; we provide innovative coworking: providing premises (online platform) for seminars, trainings, placement of project groups; we provide advice on the commercialization of innovative products, marketing activities, investment search; as well as financial support in the production of prototypes, commercialization of innovative products.


Please tell us about the process after submitting the applications.


Applications are currently being accepted. Then we will select the best. Next for the participants will be a business academy, ie it will be three training modules aimed at 20 elements (eg, investment, patenting, etc.). During this period, participants must improve their startup projects, make an appropriate presentation (with the help of our experts and mentors).In the future, among the participants in the presentation of their inventions, we choose the best to use funding to best help startups, for example, to develop a marketing strategy for them, a marketing model. I can say that this will be the continuous support of our startups.