First prize for seven young people in the competition organized every year within the framework of the Entrepreneurship course of the Department of Economic Studies of the University of Thessaloniki – How the idea was conceived
They are undergraduate students of the Department of Economic Studies of the Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH) and at the age of 22 they have proven that the imagination that characterizes their age can be "tied" in complete harmony with entrepreneurship. How? By developing the advanced navigator easy.Traffic, an application that guides citizens to find their destination, using public transportation.
With the above business idea, the seven friends managed, in addition to realizing their own vision, to win first prize in the competition organized every year within the framework of the Entrepreneurship course of the Department of Economic Studies of the University of Thessaloniki (ed. note: the event has been organized for the last six years and for the last five years the Brewery of Macedonia-Thrace has participated in the awards, giving out cash prizes).
"We were sitting in a living room and the idea came suddenly," explained to APE-MPE Efthimis Pantelidis, a member of the team that won the award, which comes with a cash prize of 900 euros. He continued, it is a navigator that is promoted through applications on "smart" mobile phones (smartphones) and tablets, with the idea that more and more people are using them.
The navigator is mainly aimed at tourists and the goal is to be implemented first of all in Greece to provide solutions to any transportation problems visitors may have.
Explaining the operation of the navigator, Efthimis Pantelidis noted that the user will have the ability to add the route they desire from their place of departure to their final destination and find all available means of transportation, the cost of travel, the hours required to travel to their destination, as well as the routes they can choose.
From the moment the idea was "born", the student team got to work and worked for 2.5 months to "build" the business plan and the navigator. In fact, the main part of the research to make the navigator's performance more effective has been done in tourist areas, mainly from Athens (due to the population that ends up there) and is expanding to some islands, such as Crete, but also Thessaloniki.
Students are invited to find original, innovative business ideas and from there develop a business plan to obtain financing, Periklis Gogas, assistant professor of the department and instructor of the Entrepreneurship course, told APE-MPA.
He, along with his course assistant, Efthymia Chrysanthidou, a doctoral candidate, have seen many ideas from young children being patented and others becoming the "yeast" for the creation of a business by the students themselves, as part of the competition.
Another typical "case" of an innovative business idea is a vest for motorcyclists, which has lighting (LED lights) to be - among other things - more visible to drivers. The students who had this idea succeeded and received a patent.
The ideas that the students' minds "download" are creative and at the same time sustainable, and at the same time they form the basis for strengthening the "instinct" of entrepreneurship in the young people themselves.
The students, Mr. Gogas added, are trying to rely on their strengths and the remarkable thing is that, after the crisis, the children's interest is even greater.
"While we would expect them to be disappointed, young people are motivated, they are activated in such situations, subconsciously or unconsciously they understand that this is the new generation that will get us out of the crisis," he said.
Source: protothema.gr
