On April 21 2021, the “Start Cup Competition: Entrepreneurship in the Mediterranean”, took place in the framework of the activities of UNIMED SubNetwork on Employability.

Following the previous edition in 2018, that took place in Messina (Italy) in September 2018 within the initiatives and activities of the RESUME project, the “Start Cup Competition 2020/2021” edition has been a contest calling for entrepreneurial ideas developed by students enrolled in Mediterranean universities. This edition aimed to encourage students of the universities of the two shores of the Mediterranean to present innovative ideas in the field of entrepreneurship.

Several teams of students from the Mediterranean area pitched their own business idea, evaluated by a jury composed by UNIMED, the European Training Foundation (ETF) and the Agence Universitaire de la francophonie (AUF) that sponsored the first price.

This competition, aimed at subjects with innovative and marketable projects, represents the ideal balance between the academic and youth landscape and the social and economic context.

This year the first price of 1.000 euros was granted to the project “MEDASINS” proposed by the Al Quds University from Palestine. This business idea is focused on some key pillars, such as the Development of a unified online food composition database for Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon that includes domestic food products and recipes for macronutrient and micronutrient content; the Evaluation of the nutritional and health status through a comprehensive collection of data to better understand the situation and facilitate the implementation of global interventions; the Development of a personalized intervention nutritional program to manage, control and monitor the adolescent’s health and diet; the Setting up of a preventive educational platform to prevent obesity and obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease.

The team HEXAGO from the University of Pisa ranked second in the standings, proposing the idea of building special guarded parking areas for e-scooters that also allow traffic to be favored by developing the use of e-scooters. Finally, the team TAKEAWAY GARDEN from the Lebanese University reached the third place with the idea of realizing a takeaway garden that can be placed anywhere and that can provide affordable organic food in cities, at the same time by reducing energy and water consumption.

On the same day, it took place the International Day for Creativity and Innovation around the World!!!

The “Start Cup Competition 2020/2021” was jointly organised by UNIMED and by the Lebanese University, coordinator of the SubNetwork on Employability, with the Centre MINE, the Center for Trades, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, and with the collaboration of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie – Moyen Orient and the European Training Foundation (ETF).

The Start Cup Competition is part of a series of initiatives organised in the framework of the UNIMED SubNetwork on Employability, whose objective is to promote cooperation between members on the theme of entrepreneurship and employability, through the collection of information and initiatives, through ongoing projects and partnerships already undertaken or in the process of definition, with university departments, research centres, researchers, professors, international experts, entrepreneurs, policy makers.

To know more on the UNIMED SubNetwork on Employability and to join the community, click here.