Panagiotis Ketikidis organises pitching students' startup to a jury of renowned experts

In the context of the unit Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship, students are required to complete a coursework.  The students were asked to come up with a start-up idea and put together a business plan describing and justifying the problems, the opportunities and potential gaps their venture might address.  The final deliverable includes a commercial venture plan.

As part of their coursework, ten groups of four students each, attending our MSc in Management of Business, Innovation & Technology (ΜΒΙΤ) programme in Athens in collaboration with Athens Tech College, presented their project on a proposed new venture before a jury of renowned experts from the industry and academia. 

Each group of students held a five-minute presentation before the jury members and the rest of the teams, followed by a 5-minute Q&A session. In the voting procedure that took place after the conclusion of the presentations the idea that received most of the jury’s votes is the winner.

The jury panel comprised a panel of experts. For example, this year the jury members were:

• Mr. Petros Kokkalis, Vice President of the Kokkalis Foundation,  
• Ms. Leda Karabela, Certified Coach for startups with many years of experience from Silicon Valley, 
• Mr. Harry Daskalakis, CEO of Athens Tech College and  
• Mr. Andreas Baresel-Bofinger, Lecturer at our Business Administration & Economics. 

Jury members were highly impressed by the quality of our students’ work, their enthusiasm and their presentation skills. The students who come from a variety of national and professional backgrounds agreed that this hands-on experience was an enjoyable and well-appreciated enhancement of their curriculum and a valuable asset for future career options.

The winning team ‘Car-care’ is a smart in-car health care system to provide risk reduction before and while driving by: Afroditi Tzoumerkioti, Anastasios Tripolitis, Ioannis Theocharis and Theodora Prodromou.

All students have gained considerable knowledge and skills:

• discover the economic opportunities present in the resolution of societal/commercial issues and the specific means of capturing those opportunities
• think creatively and critically to generate ideas on how to tap in to opportunities that will provide economic and commercial value
• apply research and analytical skills in evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities
• understand the unique nature, challenges, practices resources and opportunities of commercial ventures 
• determine critical tasks to be accomplished as well as the critical resources needed,the obstacles to be overcome during pre-start up and start-up stages of a new venture. 

Prof Panagiotis Ketikidis, 
Vice-Principle for Research, Innovation and External Relations