Third START Pro Programme for Young Entrepreneurs

It takes luck, money and above all talent for a start-up to start up and be successful, recognising this, the National Talent Programme launched the START Entrepreneurship Programme in 2022, said Zsófia Nagy-Vargha, Deputy State Secretary for Youth at the Ministry of Culture and Innovation (KIM) at the START Pro Programme Demo Day event in Budapest on Friday.

Demo Day is the closing event of the START Program organized for the third time by the National Talent Centre and Design Terminal. The START Pro programme was open to young people between the ages of 18 and 27, who could apply this year for sustainable energy, community learning and mental health promotion with a primitive technology-based product or service idea.
The 20 teams selected for the START Pro programme will be backed by an 8-week training and mentoring period. With the help of the knowledge gained here, the teams will present the idea of their businesses on the Demo Day on Friday, where the professional jury will select the two winners who will receive a 5-5 million HUF grant that they can use to develop their business and products.
Zsófia Nagy-Vargha told MTI that the application for the START Entrepreneurship Programme is great year after year, as talent can and must be found in the enterprise as well. It is also important that young people apply to the programme with socially useful, innovative ideas.
In his welcome speech, the Deputy State Secretary highlighted that, with the help of the National Talent Programme, they can provide almost HUF 4 billion in support to young talents year after year, and they are constantly working to remain creative.
That's why they decided to renew the program and switch to data-based operation. In this way, they receive much better feedback, for example, on the activity of the applications announced by the National Talent Programme and their ability to respond more easily to the needs. As part of the renewal, they will also develop a so-called online talent map, where talents, their parents and teachers can learn about the programmes available to young people, Zsófia Nagy-Vargha said.
Dóra Sándor-Kovács, managing director of the National Talent Centre, reported that 300,000-350,000 young people are reached each year in the National Talent Programme, which deals with many types of fields, including complex and privileged entrepreneurial talent.
The START Pro program and thus the 5-5 million HUF was won this year by the Wibrazz and the Switch! teams. The development of the former is a communication device that can be placed in sportswear, which supports the communication of hearing impaired athletes, while the latter is a cognitive neuropsychological test package that helps the early detection of cognitive difficulties.
In addition, the Smart Capacit System received the special award of the Ministry of Energy in the category of sustainable energy from Attila Steiner, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Policy. The team has developed software to help track the charging infrastructure of electric vehicles.