Despite the massive Russian shelling on December 29th and the resulting power outages and communication disruptions in many regions of Ukraine, the majority of program participants were able to join online for the final pitch and successfully present their innovative projects to a professional jury.

Most of the attendees of the current UF Startup School Beginner are winners and finalists of the competitions held by the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, whose research papers were recognized by our selection committee as the most promising in terms of commercialization. They all received a Certificate that granted them automatic admission to the Ukrainian Future program, the business incubator of the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which started on December 13, 2022.

During the 2.5 weeks of practical training and individual consultations in the form of online sessions, Beginner listeners worked on refining their projects. They presented their progress at the final Crash Test, which took place in a pitching format. Participants had 3-4 minutes for their presentation, plus the same amount of time for a Q&A session with the jury. The following individuals were part of the jury:

• Vitaliy Lisoviy, Director of Ukrainian Future, the business incubator of the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, business mentor for startup projects, project management expert, business development expert.
• Irina Bistrova, Ph.D., Program Manager, trainer-consultant at the Ukrainian Future business incubator, startup management expert, business planning and project financial justification expert, business mentor for startup projects.
• Vasyl Matey, Ph.D., EEN consultant, startup business coach, trainer-consultant at the Ukrainian Future business incubator, fundraising expert, financial risk management and financial management expert.

The experts highly appreciated all the presentations. The authors of several projects received invitations to work on prototypes of their inventions at UF FabLab in Kyiv. Everyone who prepared a pitch deck, which includes developers of 15 projects out of 25 registered for the program, will also receive Certificates of Completion, the opportunity to join future UF educational programs on a non-competitive basis, and participate in open events of the Ukrainian Future business incubator.