The third Joint Business Ideas Bootcamp held in Warsaw

Participants acquired fundamental business planning skills for the health, food and raw material fields

Last weekend, entrepreneurial teams worked hard to turn their innovative project ideas into a business at the Joint Business Ideas Bootcamp in Warsaw, Poland. Organised by EIT Food, EIT Health and EIT RawMaterials in cooperation with Climate-KIC, the bootcamp helped equip young scientific innovators with the right business knowledge. The two-day entrepreneurship training is based on the lean start-up methodology developed in the Silicon Valley (USA) and translated into the European environment.

During the two days of training, participants acquired fundamental business planning skills including tips and tricks on how to present their deal, choose their beachhead market, make their first financial plan, and how to talk with potential investors and customers.

The Warsaw Bootcamp was the last round of the three idea-stage trainings held in 2018. The selection process was very competitive, out of the 229 applications in the health, food and raw materials thematic fields, EIT Health received 90 applications and selected the best 25 teams to enter the programme. They were chosen from EIT’s Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS), the regions with modest and moderate innovation potential according to the European Innovation Scoreboard.

The high number of applications indicated a need for an idea-stage pre-accelerator programme in the RIS region. The Joint Business Ideas Competition has become a proven concept seeking to address this need and foster innovation in the region.

After the bootcamps, the participants will enter a competition, where the best five teams from the health, food and raw material fields will be selected and invited to the second part of the programme. The five winning teams from the health field will receive further training, personalised mentoring and support in conducting interviews with potential investors, customers and partners to validate their concept.

The closing event of the programme will be marked with the Joint Pitch Finals on 16 November in Budapest where the best five teams from the three thematic fields will compete and have a chance to win up to €10 000.