Jakab Frantisek

Technical University of Kosice / University Science Park TECHNICOM

Technical University of Kosice (TUKE) was established in 1952. The content of education and research at University includes the entire complex of sciences, economics and Art. The Technical University of Kosice was established with the aims to satisfy the needs of Eastern Slovakia in engineering education and research. The development and transmission of knowledge –in its broadest sense – is continuously the University’s major concern. The TUKE seeks to maintain a cohesive and interdependent relationship between their teaching, research and service activities with accordance to European state of Art. TUKE has  9 faculties with 10 000  students  and  1600 staff. The TUKE has been the first university in Slovakia to meet the criteria of the international standard EN ISO 9001:2000 and it received the quality certificate in the area of providing educational and research processes and enterprise activities within a public university. The progress of the research and development at TUKE was substantially supported with the structural funds resources allocated from the EC. The infrastructure is relevant to the EU state of the art, and among other things the organisation infrastructure includes the University Science Park TECHNICOM (USP TECHNICOM, ).  It`s main mission is to combine science with industry practice, to protect and raise the profile of innovative ideas and to seek partners and enhance creativity. USP TECHNICOM supports scientific and innovative projects by providing consultancy and advisory services in project proposal process and organizes information seminars, workshops, conferences, business meetings. The mission of the USP is to create a relevant virtual environment at the university that will permanently support R&D in terms of cooperation between scientists and practice, and to ensure efficient technology transfer, including support entrepreneurship/startup and spin-off creation; strength sustainability of university-business cooperation, make innovation to university style of teaching and to build entrepreneurial capacities of university managers and teachers. One of the USP TECHNICOM's key components for accelerating entrepreneurship are organisational units - the Startup Center TUKE and Incubator ;

The mission of USP TECHNICOM is to establish at TUKE the ecosystem for technology transfer, innovation and business support; to support formation and development of companies that utilize outputs of the research and development in their innovative products, goods and services. Another goal is to provide, through the Startup Center and Incubator TUKE, an incubation environment ensuring the acceleration process for the establishment and development of small and medium-sized hi‑tech companies or start-up and spin-off companies. Its purpose is to significantly help students and innovative people generally to develop their potential in various areas and activities. The idea is ‘to trigger’ a process that will help the participants to develop their ideas and support turning their ideas into innovative and commercially utilizable products or services. The Startup Center TUKE is an organizational structure that has been created as a part of the Entrepreneurship acceleration unit of USP TECHNICOM (Startup centrum TUKE is a pre-incubation structure). The Incubator TUKE is the key component of the Entrepreneurship acceleration unit of the USP TECHNICOM. Its purpose is to provide an incubation environment to ensure the acceleration process for the formation and development of small and medium-sized hi-tech companies or startup and spin-off companies.

Startup Center TUKE and Incubator TUKE include activities that support identification and specification of business ideas. They also provide premises for “incubation” of newly formed companies; support getting the information that help to implement the administrative and economic processes at the startup stage; and help getting funding for the spin-off companies (especially in finding the investors and doing negotiations with them). Business acceleration services and research services are offered as well, these services are mainly aimed at:

• Expert advice, coaching and mentoring focused on: Development of business models and plans, creating and evaluation of financial plans and marketing plans.
• Evaluation of business models focused on: Development of methodology for assessing the success and sustainability of business plans.
• Services designed to establish new start-up and spin-off companies
• Ensuring the active Acceleration Program for selected business applicants, implemented through the activities of the Startup Center TUKE and the Incubator TUKE.

The business acceleration system represents, for individuals interested in business, an original pre‑incubation service offered by the Startup Center TUKE – it covers 6 months stay in the Startup Center. The essence of the acceleration is a system of active (targeted) selective preparation of entrepreneurs (note that startup is not legal entity). After the successful “acceleration”, the entrepreneurs are enabled to enter the Incubator TUKE - the startup can enter the Incubator for a one-year, once it has become a legal entity. TUKE has, through the Startup Center TUKE, the ambition to significantly support innovative projects in a form of the high-quality expert advice, as well as through its state-of-the-art research infrastructure.

• The Startup Center TUKE and the Incubator TUKE, in the short period of their activities (since 2014), have gained a good reputation through the organization of activities that support startups or various acceleration programs, they thus became an important element of the technology transfer ecosystem at TUKE. The Startups’ Acceleration Program represents an integrated system of activities that help to develop the innovation plans of startups. In line with the activities of the Startup Center TUKE and the Incubator TUKE, the Acceleration Program forms a single continuity that ensures and provides services in the areas of innovation, technology transfer and business. The Startup Center TUKE seeks new - innovative projects through the startups competition called “Do you have an idea?. The competition is organized every 6 months. Until now, over 140 innovative projects have been involved in the acceleration program, after only ten rounds of the competition. Overall, more than 40 prospective startups with great innovation potential from the Startup Center TUKE/Incubator have been successful in the market.