UW Entrepreneur of the Year competition – 6th edition
06 lutego 2023

From 16th January to 3rd April, registrations are open for the 6th edition of the UW Entrepreneur of the Year competition. Entrepreneurs associated with the University, who have achieved a business success, are welcome to participate. The results will be announced in late May.

The University of Warsaw Entrepreneur of the Year competition is a recurrent project aimed at promoting entrepreneurial activities. It also presents good practices and positive examples of people involved in creating and developing various organisations.

The competition is open for students, doctoral candidates, employees and graduates from the University of Warsaw.

“Our intention is to select people who represent the actual top of the business world. However, winning itself does not define the competition. We want to set an example by promoting entrepreneurship and proper practices of Polish business,” Adam Niewiński, the chairman of the competition committee, emphasises.

The awards are given in five categories:

  1. Master of Business – for a successful company, which has been in the market for more than four years,
  2. Community Entrepreneur – for an organisation supporting social activities,
  3. Innovation/Innovator of the Year – for entrepreneurs who offer innovative products and services,
  4. The UW Start-up of the Year – for start-ups, which operate for less than five years and have been proposed for the competition no later than twelve months before the announcement of the results,
  5. Corporate Entrepreneur – for an employee who launched a documented implementation of an innovative product, service or solution.

“I think that this competition, filled with good business practices, shows young entrepreneurs that their academic education may lead to professional success. There are many UW graduates whose products we use in our everyday lives,” Radosław Krzywicki, the Managing Director at Assay Group and a member of the competition committee, says.

The award ceremony will take place in May.

The 6th edition of the UW Entrepreneur of the Year competition is held under the auspices of the UW Rector and the Marshall of the Masovian Voivodeship.

The winners of the previous edition

Community Entrepreneur:

  • Warsaw Genomics – finalist
  • Kamreno – distinction
  • Whellstair – finalist
  • Chemical Safety – finalist

The UW Start-up of the Year:

  • inStreamly – distinction
  • GeoLearning – finalist
  • Yellow Wear – finalist
  • Ramp Network – finalist

Innovation/Innovator of the Year:

  • Creotech Instruments – grand prize
  • OncoBoost sp. z o.o. – distinction
  • MIM Solutions – distinction

Master of Business:

  • Respect Energy – distinction
  • CD Projekt – grand prize

The competition committee also awarded special distinctions to the following projects:

  • Dinosaur from the Central Station or “Make Roar! Not war!” – Tomasz Grzywiński, an activist dressed as a dinosaur, was giving away sweets to Ukrainian children, who were coming to the Warsaw Central Station after the war outbreak. The action was supported by the internet users from Poland and rest of the world. The collected money was used to organise a ‘dinosaur team’ of activists, who visit children in refugee centres.
  • KursyPOL– a school of Polish language, which prepares people fleeing from the war in Ukraine for their life in Poland. The motto of the school: “Polish is a key to every door”.

“The acknowledgment of my work in the UW Entrepreneur of the Year competition means a great deal to me. It is the sign that I am going in a right direction. I feel very happy and proud that I received this award. I even came up with a few new ideas after the ceremony,” Przemysław Krawczyk, the founder of GeoLearning and the finalist of the fifth edition of the competition said.

 

Source: www.uw.edu.pl


UW in a project on a European status for European Universities

The University of Warsaw, as the 4EU+ member, takes part in a new EU project on devising a model of a high-level and formalised strategic cooperation for European University alliances. The project will start on 1st March and run for one year.

The ESEU (European status for ECIU University) project seeks to overcome legal obstacles to a more complex transnational cooperation of European higher education institutions through the design of an institutionalised partnership model. The initiative is coordinated by the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), and involves Una Europa, EU-Conexus, Charm-EU and the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation. The project will begin on 1st March and last for one year.

The project responds to one of the key initiatives put forward in the European Commission’s strategy for universities, aiming at developing a legal statute for alliances of higher education institutions. The legal statute would allow the alliances to act under one common personality, facilitating, among others, the implementation of joint programmes and the award of joint degrees.

“At present, European University alliances that consider establishing a legal entity have to choose from a plethora of legal forms regulated by different national jurisdictions. Each of these forms carries both limitations and advantages, that is why the very process of developing a pan-European institutional framework for European Universities will bring benefits to alliances and guide them in their choices. I am pleased that our university experts will be involved in this initiative,” Prof. Sambor Grucza, the UW Vice-Rector for Cooperation and Human Resources and the member of the 4EU+ Management Committee, said.

In April 2021, the Alliance gained legal personality with the establishment of a not-for-profit association “4EU+ European University Alliance e.V.” under German law. The Association’s headquarters are in Heidelberg, Germany.

 

The 4EU+ European University Alliance brings together seven comprehensive, research-intensive,  public universities from four regions of Europe: the University of Warsaw, the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the University of Geneva (Switzerland), the University of Milan (Italy), Charles University (Czechia), Heidelberg University (Germany), and Sorbonne University (France).

The vision of the 4EU+ Alliance is to create One Comprehensive Research European University, contributing to the building up of the European Education and Research Areas by 2025 and beyond. The 4EU+ was among the first 17 alliances funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ “European Universities” pilot call (2018) and was granted a funding renewal in 2022. As part of its activities related to research and innovation, it also carries out the TRAIN4EU+, a “Science with and for Society” project funded through the Horizon 2020 programme.

More information about the 4EU+ is available on www.4euplus.eu >>

 

Source: www.en.uw.edu.pl