USF welcomes the start of the second wave of the Entrepreneurial University initiative
Today the head of the Ukrainian Startup Fund Pavlo Kartashov took part in the grand opening of the Entrepreneurship University initiative implemented by the startup incubator YEP with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Diia.Business, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, USF, with the support of the USAID Competitive Economy Program in Ukraine (USAID CEP)
The goal of the Entrepreneurship University initiative, which has already covered nearly 80 universities across the country, is to bring university entrepreneurship in Ukraine to a qualitatively new level and develop a trend to create startups among youth and students.
“Today Ukraine has all the opportunities for the development of startups, which are implemented, in particular, by our Fund: we support startups by providing grants on no-equity basis; we finance startups to participate in a training programs of national and international accelerators; we offer new financial and non-financial opportunities for startups by the USF program of innovative vouchers. This is our new initiative – a financial tool to promote startups, thanks to which they have the opportunity to participate, for example, in Expo 2020 in Dubai (UAE), Web Summit 2021 in Lisbon (Portugal), CES 2022 in Las Vegas (USA) and others», said the head of the USF.
Pavlo Kartashov also noted the activities of the YEP incubator headed by Andriy Zaikin, with whom USF already has a positive experience of cooperation: “Today about 70% of applicants from YEP have already received funding, which indicates the high quality of projects”.
In addition, the participants discussed opportunities for further development of entrepreneurship education in Ukraine. In particular, as part of the second wave of the Entrepreneurship University initiative, the Ukrainian Startup Fund will take part in a joint all-Ukrainian educational tour of the country’s universities with partners next year.
“Our goal is that one day every Ukrainian student could create his own Ukrainian startup. Opportunities for this are and will be – they are guaranteed by the state and the ecosystem. And the student must have the desire, idea and inspiration for this. I wish everyone success!”, said the USF director.
The event organizers thanked the Ukrainian Startup Fund for the support of the Entrepreneurial University. In particular, the Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov noted the high results of the Fund’s activities over almost two years of work on the development of the innovation ecosystem (almost 200 projects worth $ 5 million were financed).
