More than five hundred visitors showed the demand for the Hungarian Startup University Program at this year's Educatio International Education Exhibition. According to the answers to the questionnaires filled in at the booth, most of the students would take the HSUP course because they would like to start their own innovative business in the future. During the exhibition, two former HSUP teams, HoloSapiens, which is developing MR technology and has taken its idea to the Startup World Cup in San Francisco, and ReFilamer, which has raised 4 million HUF in the Brancs Community Funding Programme to enable 3D printing from plastic waste, were also present at the stand to answer questions from visitors.
"It is a strategic issue that the entire Hungarian higher education system supports the creation of successful Hungarian start-ups and innovative businesses," said László Bódis, CEO of the National Innovation Agency. "In this system, HSUP is one of the practical knowledge programmes that encourages students to try their hand at realising their ideas and creating start-ups. For this to succeed, there needs to be a complex collaboration between universities, financial investors and incubators."
Mátyás Kutni, Director of Education at the National Innovation Agency, responsible for HSUP, added: "In the academic year 2023/24, HSUP was taken up by 4232 students in 33 institutions, bringing the number of students who have benefited from this course in the last 4 academic years to almost 15,000. We believe it is crucial to structure the programme to deliver real value and market knowledge, so that we can contribute to the development of the Hungarian innovation culture as a whole. With the Hungarian Startup University Program, the NIÜ is effectively supporting Hungarian innovation, creative thinking and international market access."
Hungarian Startup University Program
The HSUP aims to provide higher education students with the knowledge needed to innovate and found start-ups. Launched in 2020, the programme introduces students to the basics of innovative thinking in an e-learning format over two semesters. The course will provide them with the theoretical and practical knowledge that could be the basis for their future careers and that they can use later to develop their own ideas and businesses. The HSUP application developed for this purpose is the 2nd most used application in the education category.
