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INRTU selects participants for the "PRO-entrepreneurship" program

The participants of the free educational program "PRO-entrepreneurship" are being selected at INRTU. 140 students were interviewed by experts. The candidates also participated in intellectual and business games. The participants of the program will start from the idea of a business project and finish with its implementation.

The University Office of Youth Policy has been implementing the program since 2022 as part of the federal project "University Technology Entrepreneurship Platform".

According to Valeria Kupriyanova, Project Coordinator at INRTU, representatives of Easy School educational center worked with the candidates on the first day of the competition.

During the business game, experts evaluated students' leadership qualities, teamwork skills and involvement in the process. Students, as a team, were offered to determine top 10 qualities of an entrepreneur.

This task helped the contestants to sharpen their negotiation skills. In addition, the first stage of the selection process included an intellectual game. After this participants were interviewed by mentors and experts.

"The main criterion for selection is the candidate's interest in business activity. We hope that some of the projects developed during this intensive will become a part of “Startup as a Diploma” program", emphasized Valeria

The winners of the selection process will receive intensive training in spring. They will learn the basics of management and fundraising. Students will identify problems and propose solutions to them during the planned audit of the companies.

In autumn, contestants will have two months to work out their own business model, ready for implementation and presentation to potential investors.

Mentors, representatives of real business, will work with the participants of the program at the second stage.

Ivan Nechaev, a sophomore at the School of Power Engineering, learned about the opportunities of the educational program at INRTU Summer Scientific School. Ivan hopes that the intensive will help him to take his first steps in the pharmaceutical industry:

"Thanks to this project you can meet some entrepreneurs of Irkutsk and even find a mentor. I felt comfortable during the selection events. It was especially interesting to be at the negotiation table. I was trying to find a compromise after unsuccessful attempts to get my opponent to accept my point of view. I have three doctors in my family and I want to open a pharmacy".

Konstantin Tomskikh is training to become a manager in the area of innovation management. He was one of the first to apply for program in 2023.

Konstantin finds the competition games intense and exciting:

"We agreed to cooperate with some players and built strategic schemes with others. It was interesting to see how the players, who would have to work together in the future, used different negotiation tactics at the "fringe" stage.

Now I do not have a specific concept for a business, but I have some ideas of possible projects. The "PRO-Entrepreneurship Program" will help me to make an effective business plan and will complement and reinforce the economic knowledge I received during the lectures at the university".

The final day for applications is February 22. The results of the selection will be known after the weekend. The opening ceremony of the program will take place on February 28 at 16:30 at the "Tochka Kipeniya" (Boiling Point) of INRTU.