In September, the University Accelerator will start working at MEPhI. Each student will be able to present their technological project, the best ones will get into the accelerator and have the opportunity to grow into an innovative company.

The selection of projects will be carried out within the framework of the program “Development of MEPhI in cooperation with the State Corporation Rosatom until 2030”. The goal is to promote the formation of an entrepreneurial environment at the university. The experience for our university is new and very useful. According to Vladimir Kislov, head of the Directorate for the Development of Project Activities at MEPhI, when discussing student projects at a university, they usually talk about their technological component, but do not think about economic efficiency, the accelerator will set a new vector for the university’s activities, help students feel a taste for entrepreneurship and, possibly, create marketed innovative products.

“The application for participation in the accelerator will be able to submit both first-year students and undergraduates, graduate students, teachers. Age and status are not important. The main thing is a good idea. Preference will be given to those projects that have the greatest potential, where it is clear how the business will be built, what will make up profitability and revenue,” explains Vladimir Kislov.

The work of the accelerator will be accompanied by experts from Innohub Rosatom, which acts as a “single window” for receiving, evaluating and bringing projects to the implementation stage of new business lines. The company has its own methodology for the development of technology startups, which has proven its effectiveness.

“Participation in the MEPhI accelerator is a promising and safe way to try yourself as an entrepreneur already as a student. Undergraduate and graduate students have access to a plethora of technological ideas and have enough enthusiasm to try commercializing them. It is important that their mentors are ready to share such ideas, and the accelerator participants themselves are patient and diligent enough to consistently test business hypotheses and look for their clients. Innohub Rosatom experts will accompany the work of the accelerator in the first cycles and share their experience. I hope that as a result we will all witness the birth of a cohort of new small innovative companies,” said Stanislav Krechetov, Director General of Innohub Rosatom.

The accelerator program provides for a lot of practice, its participants will have the opportunity of personal communication with the directors of large companies and enterprises.

The creation of the "University Accelerator" assumes that MEPhI will implement projects that can later turn into working technology businesses.