The first presentation round of the Start Your Business competition took place

At the end of January, a total of 34 teams from nine faculties of Masaryk University, ranging from undergraduate students to teams composed of Ph.D. students, registered for the 4th year of Masaryk University's Start Your Business student competition. Based on the quality of the project applications and motivational videos, the expert committee decided to send 18 teams to the first round of the competition. The first presentation day took place on 22 February 2024, at the Technology Transfer Office and featured a truly diverse range of projects, from web platforms and mobile applications to special watches and backpacks made of sustainable materials, to a program improving employee productivity or a "new generation" saffron.

29 Feb 2024

Eliška Pivrncová from the Faculty of Science during the presentation of the LactoPads project

This year's expert jury includes representatives of the Masaryk University - Alena Šafrová Drášilová from the Faculty of Economics and Administration, Radoslav Trautmann from the Technology Transfer Office, Libor Hoření from the South Moravian Innovation Centre and the investors Miloš Dendis from Dendis Capital and Jakub Losenický from V# Venture Studio, who are also partners of the competition. The committee's aim in the first round was not only to assess the business potential of the idea, but also to provide valuable feedback to the students and direct them to further develop their projects.

In the morning part of the presentations, Bernhard Tengler, a student of the Faculty of Law, presented an idea on how to identify reliable tenants, which he presented in the form of a web platform RentCheck. The mediation of dental clinical trials in dentists' offices is addressed by the Dental Clinical Trials project of the Faculty of Medicine student Veronika Vávrová. The provision of renting a safe space for friends' free time was presented by Anton Babich, a student of the Faculty of Economics and Administration, as the Chill Space Brno project. Jakub Pitucha, a student of the Faculty of Law, has been interested in watches since childhood and fell into this passion while working at the temporary job in the watchmaker´s shop. Thanks to this, the Jacob o'Clock project was created. Antonín Kadrmas from the Faculty of Informatics helps construction companies to digitise their attendance records and construction diaries using the mobile application Buildnet: Moderní stavebnictví. Jakub Jamný from the Faculty of Economics and Administration came up with an idea for backpacks made from sustainable materials such as pineapple leaf waste. Filip Prochác from the Faculty of Informatics presented the Citymind project, which aims to help cities and public institutions communicate with citizens, and Adam Táborský from the Faculty of Social Studies is trying to give people better access to mental health support through Soulroots, an application that directs them back to nature. The last idea presented in the morning session was the DAISY system by Martin Kadlec, a student at the Faculty of Medicine, which uses artificial intelligence to support dentists in diagnosing and planning treatment for patients.

In the afternoon block of presentations, the digital application RISK ON by Filip Blaha, a student of the Faculty of Economics and Administration, was the first to be introduced to help doctors set up effective and timely interventions in the field of oncology. Tereza Brzá and her platform Toolia helps with English language teaching thanks to artificial intelligence and the creation of individual learning materials. The Virtual Safe application is an application of a safety mechanism designed to prevent unwanted gun shots and was presented by student Pavel Blažek from the Faculty of Social Studies. Gastronomic experience and health benefits of "red gold" for all is addressed by the Matej Zámečník´s project called Spicy Cell, Matej is a student of the Faculty of Science. The vision of the buy.safe project by Šimon Plhák, a student of the Faculty of Informatics, is to create an application for the safe purchase or repurchase of tickets. According to research, up to 45% of the population struggles with sleep problems, and the Sleepstore project by Dalibor Heblák from the Faculty of Economics and Administration aims not only to improve the quality of sleep, but also to educate customers in this area. The LactoPads project by Eliška Pivrncová, a student of the Faculty of Science, is solving breastfeeding problems and the PoRůst programme by Petra Kalousková, another student of the Faculty of Science, is innovatively improving company culture and employee productivity. The last project that made it to the first round of the competition is the virtual assistant Veronica, which helps, for example, with the classification of important information from noisy audio data, by Faculty of Science student Jean-Paul Breuer.

After dozens of minutes of decision-making, the five-member committee decided to support financially and by the mentors´advice a total of 10 teams to the second round of the competition. These teams will receive 10 000 CZK to develop their ideas. They will then continue to work on improving it and present it during the second presentation day, which will take place on 24 April 2024.

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