We have started accepting applications for the «SPbU Start-up — 2019» contest with a prize fund of more than 2 million rubles

the St Petersburg University Endowment Fund

Who will get grants of 1mln rubles and 700, 000 rubles from the Endowment Fund of St Petersburg University depends on the number of points scored during the final round. The total prize fund this year will be more than two million rubles.

The main requirements of the contest are to puttogether a team of three to five undergraduate students or postgraduates of St Petersburg University in three different fields of study, to come up with a knowledge-intensive and commercially promising project, and to send an application for participation in the contest from October 8 to November 9, 2018.

If the idea is worthwhile, the team will be invited to defend their project at the on-site stage in December, which results in a shortlist of no more than 15 finalist teams. For four months (January, February, March and April), these lucky ones will receive a scholarship from the Endowment Fund of St Petersburg University (7,000 rubles each) and continue to improve their projects.

Two enterprises that are formed with SPbU and finalist projects will get 1,7 mln rubles to develop the companies.

Only those teams that will present the most innovative, promising and potentially successful projects will get to the final and get prizes: 300,000 rubles for the first place, 200,000 rubles for the second place, and 100,000 rubles for the third place. What is more is that two small innovative enterprises that are formed with SPbU and finalist projects will get two grants to develop the companies: 1 mln rubles and 700,000 rubles (depending on their points scored).This means that not only the winners of the contest, but also other teams that will present their projects in the final will be able to get an offer from SPbU to create a small innovative enterprise.

The «SPbU Start-up» contest is held at the University for the fourth time. Last year, the first place, a prize scholarship of 300,000 rubles, as well as a grant of 1 mln rubles was received by the «Diaplast» student team, which had developed the rapid test for sugar control. The second place, a prize grant of 200,000 rubles and a grant of 700,000 rubles went to the Ceramic Prints team, which had introduced a 3D printer for printing dentures. The third place and a prize scholarship of 100,000 rubles was received by the D.E.N.T. team, which had offered to equip dental clinics with e-extractors that allow you to quickly extract fragments of broken instruments from the root canals of the teeth.

Your contest project can be concerned with biomedicine, artificial intelligence, Arctic exploration, block-chain technologies, robototronics and many others. The contest organisers warn that these topics serve as recommendations; so you don’t have to necessarily focus on them only.

As a rule, research supervisors can also take part in the contest: if their students win one of the three prizes, they will get 100,000 rubles each. We haven’t changed other key requirements: each team can present only one project, and you can be a member of one team only. For detailed information, the contest regulations, and the application form for participation, visit the «SPbU Start-up — 2019» webpage of the St Petersburg University Endowment Fund.