The ‘Slush'D’ event, an event designed to support and promote local start-ups by fostering innovation and networking between entrepreneurs, technology professionals and interested students, has concluded with great success. As part of this event, held for the first time in Italy, unibz in collaboration with the Junior Enterprise Association (JEAA) organised a side event on 2nd of September.

The day began with the Loacker Business Challenge, an entrepreneurial competition involving a dozen unibz students. The competition, which ran from 13:00 to 17:00, provided space for innovative ideas and projects and encouraged collaboration between students from different disciplines and academic levels. In fact, "the winning group was made up of bachelor's and master's students, computer science and economics students, and even a PhD in engineering. So we had a wide range of faculties at the university and different skills and competences,' says Prof. Francesco Ravazzolo from unibz.

The highlight of the day was the announcement of the winners of the Loacker Business Challenge. The team consisting of Chiara Foschi (Bachelor in Economics, Politics and Ethics), Nicolas Bonet (Bachelor in Computer Science), Beatrice Bais (PhD student in Sustainability Management), Nicole Moratelli (Master in Accounting and Finance) and Matteo Giovannetti (Bachelor in Computer Science) won first place thanks to a project - "Loacker Apple Diskuits" - that combined technical, economic and innovative skills.

The main session of the event, from 17:15 to 18:30, featured keynote speeches by experts and lecturers from the University of Bolzano, including Fabrizio Mazzetto, Claudio Bagnoli and Francesco Ravazzolo. Among the topics discussed were the future of the Mountecos competence centre, pre-acceleration activities at unibz and the importance of collaboration with the private sector. In particular, Prof. Francesco Ravazzolo emphasised the importance of initiatives such as this for the development of start-ups and spin-offs and the future promotion of innovative ideas. “We hope to create business opportunities for this area, which we have defined as Science Based Business," said the Professor.

Professor Ravazzolo also highlighted the importance of this event for students to learn how to effectively present their ideas, a crucial skill in the world of start-ups and entrepreneurship. The event was very student-oriented, giving them the opportunity to showcase their innovative ideas not only during the Business Challenge, but also through selected presentations over the previous months.