2016 Press Releases
UCC hosts ICT start-ups
Europe’s top young entrepreneurs founded international tech start-ups in a UCC-led European Virtual Accelerator programme called EU-XCEL hosted by UCC this month.
The EU-XCEL Summer School in ICT entrepreneurship started in University College Cork with over 30 participants from 12 European member states working on developing new ICT businesses. EU-XCEL is a two-year programme in ICT entrepreneurship, which focuses on bringing together multi-national European teams to develop innovative and novel ICT businesses. It is a truly international event with citizens from over 25 members states involved. Over 600 people applied for places on EU-XCEL, which is part of the Start-up Europe initiative. The EU-XCEL project is the first Horizon 2020 programme coordinated by an interdisciplinary team of staff from the business school in UCC, with a committed team of project partners from Denmark, Greece, Spain, Germany and Poland.
In welcoming the participants to UCC, Professor Ciaran Murphy, Head of Cork University Business School, stated ‘Europe needs young people like the participants of EU-XCEL to work together and build new European-wide start-ups. European-wide entrepreneurship is a worthwhile and much needed goal that we must all strive towards.’
Dr Brian O’Flaherty, Cork University Business School, UCC added that ‘this is a unique opportunity for multi-nationality teams to attend leading European Entrepreneurship centres of excellence and develop an international dimension to their ICT businesses from the start. Collectively the goal is, through the umbrella of the Start-up Europe, to develop a new European Entrepreneurship Culture, which re-imagines an alternative way of building European wide companies.”
The EU-XCEL challenge final will take place in Munich in 24th & 25th October, where the best from six summer schools across Europe will compete for the title of EU-XCEL’s top start-up.
Startup Europe aims to strengthen the business environment for web and ICT entrepreneurs so that their ideas and business can start and grow in the EU. Startup Europe contributes to the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan. Startup Europe's objectives are: to reinforce the links between people, business and associations who build and scale up the startup ecosystem, to inspire entrepreneurs and provide role models and to celebrate new and innovative startups, help them to expand their business and give them access to funding under Horizon 2020.