Danube Cup 2021 – International pitch competition for university students coming up!

The Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) and Corvinus University Budapest have joined forces to organize ’Danube Cup 2021’, an international entrepreneurial pitch competition for students attending universities located on the course of the River Danube.

The event in will take place in April 2021 and has an unexpectedly high level of international resonance. The following universities will delegate teams:

• Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna)
• University of Belgrade
• University of Passau
• Johannes Kepler University Linz
• OTH Regensburg, University of Applied Sciences.

The Hungarian pre-selection competition takes place on 4 December 2020. The semi-final event is to be streamed live on the official Danube Cup Facebook page. Eight teams have been selected to perform in the pre-selection competition based on a video application – the teams are currently undergoing professional training and preparation. Along with  lecturers of both Corvinus and BME, the training team features experts of pozi.io and K&H Bank’s incubation program ’Start it’.

The winning 2+2 teams from Corvinus and BME will be rewarded with the opportunity to represent their respective universities in the international contest in April 2021, as well as that of undergoing K&H’s incubation program ’Start It’ before the event.

The national pre-selection is funded by National Talent Programme (NTA) Hungary.

The event is sponsored by Nemzeti Tehetség Program (NTP), 77elektronika Kft, K&H Bank, Tresorit Kft, and Neticle Labs Kft.

BME alumni and Product Development Leader of American 3D printer manufacturer Formlabs Dávid Lakatos will be  guest speaker at the pre-selection event.

The jury members are:

• Dorka Horváth (Co-founder and CEO of BOOKR Kids)
• Katalin Orbán (Co-founder of Gyerünk, Anyukám!)
• István Lám (Founder and CEO of Tresorit)
• Ernő Duda (Co-founder and Managing Director of Solvo Biotecnhology)
• Lénárd Horgos (Business Unit Manager of Growth Financing, Absolvo Consulting).

Danube Cup 2021 is expected to enhance international cooperation in business development between participating institutions.

Over the past decade, several Hungarian university projects have grown into renowned companies – examples include Supercharge, Neticle, Tresorit, BookrKids, Publishdrive, Soupy and Zyntern. The winner of Danube Cup’s national predecessor competition ‘Duna Kupa’, Roksh, now provides an online shopping platform to supermarket chains such as Aldi. Danube Cup 2021 offers the environment and motivation for future innovative enterprises to be developed by students to turn their business ideas into reality. Competing teams will gain professional experience, invaluable business networking opportunities, and will be enriched by inspiration and mentoring provided by renowned entrepreneurs, investors, and incubation and accelerator programme leaders. All this will take place in the framework of an international competition in which they will have the chance to measure themselves against student teams of similar motivation.