The Best Project from the Business Accelerator xPORT VŠE is Techambition
On Tuesday, 9th February, 2016, xPORT, the business accelerator of the University of Economics, Prague, organized its first Demo Day 2016 – a competition for showcasing the top six start-ups who are currently developing their businesses at xPORT VŠE. The winner was the team with the project Techambition. This project facilitates the work of teachers and the students’ comprehension through online lessons of secondary school mathematics with visualizations, interactive questions and automatic evaluation. The winners received the xPORT Award prize, along with a Rector’s prize of 20 thousand Czech Crowns from the Rector of the University of Economics, Prague.
On Demo Day, the teams had to convince the jury, and the audience, by giving a four-minute presentation. The winning project was selected by a professional jury consisting of Dr. Ivo Sr. Kovachev (investor, entrepreneur, donor), Tomas Žďára (Digital Punker Česká Spořitelna) and Martin Kešner (Idea of the Year, Faculty of Business Administration). Techambition, which was presented on Demo Day by Jakub Stránský, was the project that persuaded them the most. Their interactive mathematical tasks help high school students, teachers and schools as a whole. Students can be entertained by mathematics, while teachers can through data, for example, see at what stage of task their students are most frequently having problems, and, consequently, target their classes more effectively. In 2013 the project received an award for its contribution to education in the category of technology from Google and EduIn. A year later it was helping with the teaching of thermodynamics at Stanford University.
“Now we would like to focus on improving sales. We came to xPORT about two months ago and, working here in a team made up of other companies is great. For example, the team that just focuses on selling solutions has helped us a lot, “says Stránský.
“It is a unique technology which has undergone a long period of development and testing. The product has been verified by thousands of users; not only in Czech Republic, but also in Italy. Technology in education also has great potential,” Martin Kešner thus explained the jury’s decision.
The Audience Award was won by the Teleportoo team, which will soon launch a new application for ordering the transportation of goods, or the moving thereof. Users take a picture of an object that they want to have delivered to their home from the store, or move from their home to another location. They then wait for offers from drivers who send information about how long it will take, and for how much it will cost to execute the order. The Teleportoo Application works on a similar principle to Uber and Liftago.
Awards to starting entrepreneurs were handed over by xPORT Director Ota Novotný, xPORT Deputy Director Stanislav Richter, and the Rector of the University of Economics prof. Hana Machková. The University of Economics, Prague, opened its business accelerator last year, on 27th January, 2015, as a platform for promoting entrepreneurship among students, graduates and employees of the University of Economics, Prague. Since then, its premises and services have been used by 28 teams – 20 young business projects and 8 advanced start-ups.
At the Demo Day xPORT also introduced other developing activity – innovative projects for corporate clients. The corporate line (cPORT) connects businesses that are interested in professional services in University’s majors with teachers and students who are working on projects and insert their know-how into them. On Tuesday’s Demo Day xPORT presented a project for the global IT innovation centre of pharmaceutical company MSD (in US and Canada known as Merck) and the accounting and tax firm Locke & Hobbes.
