The 2nd Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition at Dong A University

On April 1, the launching ceremony of the 2023 Dong A University Student Innovation and Startup Competition took place with the participation of diverse student startup projects.

Launched in February 2023, the competition has so far attracted 42 startup projects registered to participate from startup groups with 167 student members in 17 specialized faculties. The number of startup projects is spread across 3 highly applicable fields: engineering, trade - services and health - medicine.

This is the second startup competition held, for students in all training majors at the school. This year's competition is also recognized as the year with the number of projects nearly doubled compared to the first year of organization, the quality of the projects is even, the applicability and development ability of the project is high. The total prize structure is more than 50 million VND.

Speaking at the program, Mr. Luong Minh Sam, Chairman of the University Council, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation of Dong A University emphasized: “Not stopping at the scale of a competition with ideas, from 2021 to now, Dong A University aims to develop student startups into one of the output standards for students in each training major; create a space to promote students to actually study and practice with their own trained expertise and pursue their career passion right from the classroom to be ready to develop the future”.

Immediately after the launching ceremony, the Startup Advisory Board for Dong A University students was officially launched with 10 members. The members come from support centers - startup incubators, domestic startups: National Center for Startup Support NSSC, Danang Center for Startup Support, Songhan Incubator (SHi), Danang Business Incubator (DNES), Ha Long Canned Food Company Limited ( Masan ), Danang Young Entrepreneurs Association and lecturers and researchers on startups at Dong A University.

It is known that the competition will take place from February 20 to June 15 with 3 rounds: Finding problems - Developing problems - Final. During that journey, members of the Startup Advisory Board will accompany the project teams in the role of "mentors" throughout the stages of the competition. Accordingly, student startup projects will be guided on methods, shared startup knowledge, supported in developing ideas and completing projects. At the same time, the "mentors" will also participate in supporting capital raising, calling for investment and commercializing products for projects that are assessed as promising in terms of high applicability and feasibility.

After the launching ceremony, project teams will also immediately participate in training sessions on startups, project idea investment planning and capital raising skills, presentation and negotiation with experts to prepare suitable conditions for the next round.

Within the framework of the program, there were also presentations on “Idea formation, startup idea development”, “Startup support process of Da Nang city”. In addition, the session of sharing startup experiences from startup businesses that are partners and alumni of the school; the discussion session, direct dialogue between the startup advisory board and the project groups that are implementing and students who are nurturing startup ideas in the future were also events that attracted the attention of many students and those working on startup projects.

Previously, Dong A University also established and put into operation a startup and innovation space with an initial construction investment of more than 1 billion VND on a total area of ^800m2 . At the same time, the Dong A University Student Startup and Scientific Research Support Fund also prioritized up to 2 billion VND to accompany and support the commercialization of highly applicable products and the development of student startup innovation projects./.

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