Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) provides support, business contacts, experience, entrepreneurship training, and premises to students with promising ideas in the DA-SPACE project, Interreg Danube Transnational Programme.

CTU Open Innovation Lab (CTU OIL), which promotes cross-disciplinary and transnational cooperation among different stakeholders, generates new solutions and nurtures entrepreneurial skills of all the actors involved, was established at the Faculty of Informatics at CTU in Prague.

The seekers (university, companies) define a challenge that is addressed by the solvers – students. Through a co-creation method, young talents develop new solutions and business ideas within CTU OIL. The exchange among these actors within the DA-SPACE labs is profitable for all sides. Young talents have a chance to work on real business cases and are able to test and prototype their ideas in safe environment while acquiring entrepreneurial skills. The seekers test co-creation and open innovation methods and benefit from the collaboration with young innovators. The students work on their projects under the supervision of mentors, industrial experts and specialists in specific fields.

Within one cycle, CTU OIL offers around 80 hours of interactive seminars, hands-on workshops and individual consultations to the students focusing on project management, team building, idea generation, lean start-up methodology, business models, and soft skills, such as marketing and presentation skills.

On April 12 CTU OIL´s teams of students presented their projects focusing on use cases, risk management, persons and user stories.