Ukraine: Center for entrepreneurship helping UCU in Lviv become “an entrepreneurial University”

(Bratislava) - 60 events, 3,550 participants and 80 successful startups launched by graduates – this is the balance of last year´s activities of the Center for Entrepreneurship of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv. According to its acting director, Ivan Petrenko, one of the strategic goals for 2025 is to make UCU “an entrepreneurial university” through the implementation of various educational programs including pre-accelerator programs to support early-stage startups. “We have run the program six times since the Center was established in 2018, and every year the number of applications increases. Mentoring is offered by practicing entrepreneurs not only from Ukraine but also from the USA, Belgium, Cyprus, Great Britain and Lithuania. The last pre-accelerator program received more than fifty applications from six Ukrainian cities”, explains Petrenko. As he notes, the startups of graduates operate in various sectors, the majority of them in the fields of educational technologies, software development and foodtech. The Center’s plan for 2021 includes moving all programs online, launching a startup incubator at the UCU IdeasLab Incubator for student´s startups, holding several bootcamps in partnership with the American accelerator US MAC, and conducting a large-scale Business Tech Challenge in cooperation with the Artificial Intelligence Association of Ukraine.
Gigliola Alfaro