The opportunity to apply for the development of a business idea in the innovation promotion project "Nobalis"

LBTU is Latvia's representative in the NOBALIS international project, the purpose of which is to analyze and promote innovations in the higher education process. Within the project, students and student-employee‘s teams are invited to apply for the development of innovative business ideas for food, biotechnology or bioresource products or services.

Participation in the program provides international experience, as teams from universities in Latvia, Estonia, Norway and Sweden participate in the program.

Within the framework of the innovation promotion program, three stages are implemented: a hackathon, a mentoring program and a Demo day. In the spring of 2024, the third step of the project to promote business ideas will take place.

To participate in the program, students must register their participation by February 21, applying their team and idea. Students who want to participate, but do not have a team, have the opportunity to apply - in this case, the student will be added to an existing team, which may also be an international.

On March 6, a hackathon will be held and each team will prepare a three-minute presentation of their business idea, presenting its relevance and viability. During the hackathon, the best business ideas will be selected, which will continue to participate in the next stage of the program.

The best teams continue to participate in the program, developing their business idea in cooperation with mentors. Mentor sessions will be held on March 20, April 3 and April 17. The experience of the mentor phase is also emphasized by the winner of the 3rd place of the 1st phase of the NOBALIS project and student of the academic bachelor's study program "Economics" Felippe A. Nuno: "I was motivated by the opportunity to expand my study experience and horizons. In the NOBALIS project, in cooperation with several mentors, I had the opportunity to study various resources application possibilities, to look for innovative approaches to create a product, and as a result to develop, introduce and test it on the market. During the implementation of the project, there was a great opportunity to build international cooperation - at every step of the project, we collaborated with various experts who always supported and helped to solve any issue."

At the final stage of the program, on May 2, the Demo Day takes place, which is the final of the team competition. On Demo Day, each team presents its perfected business idea to an international jury.

The NOBALIS project offers a 1,000 EUR prize for the best team and additional prizes from NOBALIS universities, business idea development support, international mentors in business, product development, marketing and other areas, support in developing prototypes and making contacts with investors and the industry.

The registration form is available through this link. 

In 2021, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) launched a new initiative "The HEI Initiative: Strengthening Innovation Capacity for Higher Education", with the aim of promoting the innovation ecosystem and partnerships in Europe, highlighting the role of the knowledge acquisition process in the creation of innovation. The NOBALIS (Nordic Baltic Universities boosting entrepreneurial and innovation systems) project is one of the projects financed by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which is implemented by partner universities and institutes in Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia. Latvia is represented in the project by the Latvian University of Biosciences and Technologies (LBTU).

More about the project is available at: https://nobalis.eu/ .

The photo in the article is for illustrative purposes (www.pexels.com).