Entrepreneurship Week at USI

Università della Svizzera italiana is organising a week dedicated to innovative entrepreneurship, full of initiatives and events to bring the world of startups, the academic community and the population closer together. The week will kick off on Monday, 11 October, with the inauguration of the InCube Challenge, a competition between groups of students who will spend five days in a glass cube to solve a global problem. For the first time, the glass cube also lands in Southern Switzerland and will be set up at the entrance of the Lugano East Campus. The Start-up Centre will hold an open house on Wednesday, 13 October. The week will end with Startups for Lunch, a packed lunch dedicated to students interested in the world of innovation.

InCube Challenge, 11 - 15 October 2021

The InCube Challenge will begin at 9 am on Monday: five people inside a glass cube will have five days to develop an innovative project in response to a global challenge. The initiative is promoted by the Entrepreneur Club of the ETH Zürich worldwide: the different cubes will be placed in various cities around the world, among which, for the first time, there is also Lugano. For the 2021 edition, the USI Startup Centre is the official partner and local co-organiser. The structure, located at the entrance of the East Campus, will host students from ETH Zürich and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany). In addition, a student from USI Faculty of Informatics will participate in the competition in the Zurich cube. At the end of the five days, all Swiss teams will gather in Zurich for the final event where the proposals will be presented, and the winner will be announced.

USI Startup Centre Open Doors, 13 October from 5 pm to 9 pm

The Open Doors will host several exhibition booths allowing the public to discover more than thirty innovative projects incubated and pre-incubated at the Centre. The evening will open with the official welcome by Boas Erez, Rector of Università della Svizzera italiana, and Christian Vitta, State Councillor and Director of the Department of Finance and Economy of the Canton Ticino. This will be followed by the visit of the exhibition stations dedicated to entrepreneurial projects and the "startup pitch battle", in which a dozen entrepreneurs will compete. The Apéro area will also offer the opportunity to meet and network with participants, the USI community, coaches, investors, institutions, companies, trade associations, etc...

The event is part of the celebration of USI's twenty-fifth anniversary. It will be held on Wednesday, 13 October from 5 pm at the USI Startup Centre on the Lugano East Campus (sector C, second floor).

Startups for Lunch, 14 October 2021

Taking advantage of the synergies provided by the shared spaces on the East Campus, USI Startup Centre, and the Startup Garage of the Department of Innovative Technologies of SUPSI joined forces for the first time. They organised a packed lunch dedicated to students interested in the world of innovation, to be held on Thursday, 14 October. It is an informal moment to share experiences and present the services offered by the USI Startup Centre and the Startup Garage of the DTI. Startuppers, students, coaches and mentors will be present.