START 100- FROM IDEA TO IMPACT WITHIN 100 DAYS

Start100 is a student incubator programme based in the University of Galway IdeasLab, our home for student innovation. The vision of Start100 is to support students who are interested in developing a new business, whether commercial or social, to validate and de-risk their idea to the point of impact. We do this by fostering the development of student skills and competences, supporting the creation of a new business, or facilitating student access to suitable feeder programmes in order to leverage other expertise and funding. Start100 takes a person centric approach to each student idea, focusing on developing milestones and goals with the student. It matches each student with a suitable mentorship panel to support their journey and supports the development of a funding and resource pipeline for each project to maximize its potential for success. Start100 is co-curricular and focusses on idea validation, de-risking, skills and talent development among our student population, both under and postgraduate. Our rationale is informed by the EUs (2021) `Regional Innovation Scoreboard which indicates that our region is the Irish region to be classified as a `Moderate Innovator, namely a region to record an innovation index score between 70% and 100% of the EU average. Within this context, Start100 creates a bridge between the university and the many supports available across the ecosystem. The specific programme objectives are: To assist participants with problem validation using design thinking approaches To support skill development for individuals along an individually defined pathway To promote accelerator readiness for each teams novel idea This case study provides a brief report of the first iteration of the Start 100 programme which took place in 2021. It is submitted as an exemplar at initiative level under the conference subtheme of Entrepreneurship at Universities.