After the initial projects presentation stage, open to the whole university community, five initiatives were selected, which were worked on intensely on the two especially practical training days. Tourism, robotics applied to education, translation platforms, information technologies and renewable energies were the five areas in which the selected projects operate, and they were all promoted by research personnel, students and former students of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI).

Bootcamp Launchpad refers to a group of people who work together towards a common objective which, in this case, was creating an innovative company. It is a widely used term in worldwide innovative enterprising domains, and several international programmes have resorted to this methodology as the principle of every innovative business creation process. It is a matter of practically analysing ideas collaboratively to transform them into innovative business projects or, at least, of reflecting on the initial concept to adapt it to market requirements, stated those who organised the event.

On Thursday and Friday, work was done on ten modules that summarise the basic aspects that any company has to consider when setting up and, more importantly, to remain sustainable with time. Defining and quantifying the entrepreneur’s dream; simply explaining what solution they can provide consumers with; segmenting and quantifying the market; analysing what business model is the most suitable for their project; clearly defining the innovation that the competitive advantage offers; knowing the legal aspects associated with creating technology-based companies; knowing how to finance the project; learning to build a team. These are just some of the practical work modules worked on.

As this initiative was well accepted, and given the need to support researchers and students with innovative market-related projects, OCIT and espaitec will organise new sessions next year.