The Director of the International Faculty Career & Enterprise Centre participates in EU Programme, iStart

The Director of Career, Employability and Enterprise Centre, Mr Vasilis Tsoulis, represented the International Faculty CITY College and its research centre, SEERC (South Eastern European Research Center), at the European Programme “iStart”, for its second Training Academy in Coimbra, Portugal. “iStart” partners are Yasar University, Incubator Como Next, University of Coimbra, Pedro Nunes Institute, the European Business Angel Network (EBAN) and SEERC.

The second Training Academy lasted a week and consisted of two different sets of activities as well as the iStart Dissemination / Multiplier Event. The first action was the training of 30 students on the operations and functions of Start-Ups. The second part was the internal meeting of partners, in order to evaluate the progress of the programme as well as the coordination of future actions. The training action included students from multiple, diverse backgrounds from the Coimbra University concluding with teams with participants from totally different backgrounds - a mix that proved particularly interesting. A very experienced business consultant was invited as a trainer and supervisor during the whole week of the training.

The programme partner participants acted as coaches and mentors. In the same context, the teams had to find an idea and by following the lead and advice of their trainers, to come up with a business plan. More precisely they followed all actual steps included in the “real life” planning of a new idea, like market research, market testing and market validation. Finally, after special sessions on how to structure their business plan and their pitch, the training week came to an end with the students pitching their work to a panel of entrepreneurs in a competition. The whole programme was very successful. The next academy will take place in Italy, Como, on May 2018 and the last one is planned for the autumn months of 2018 in Yasar University, Turkey.