Winner of Entrepreneur Challenge
- Information
- 2022.4.18
On March 9, 2022, the Entrepreneur Challenge, a business plan contest, was held for the first time on campus. A total of 15 teams from faculty, staff, and students participated in the competition, and nine teams selected in the first round presented their business plans in the final round. The Grand Prize went to Ryota Sakamoto (business plan name: CYP Chemistry, affiliation: first-year doctoral student in the Department of Biotechnology and Life Science, Graduate School of Engineering). He presented a business plan for the production of pharmaceuticals that do not depend on petroleum resources using the biologically-derived enzyme CYP. He won the President’s Prize of 1 million yen for hypothesis verification and is expected to commercialize his project in the future!
In addition, a supplementary prizes were awarded based on an independent review by the sponsoring organizations. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) selected Shinichiro Agake’s plan (business plan name: MicroFarm, affiliation: third-year doctoral student at the United Graduate School of Agricultural Science) to manufacture and sell a biofertilizer kit that will achieve agriculture with less environmental pollution, and obtained the right to participate in 2022 NEDO Technology Commercialization Program. In addition, Chinatsu Ukawa’s plan (business plan name: development of a fermentation device for cacao beans equipped with a quality prediction system, affiliation: a third-year student in the Department of Food and Energy Systems Science, Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering) won the Star Invention Corporation Award for her business plan, and A hundred thousand yen as start-up support was awarded.
Second Entrepreneur Challenge
We plan to announce 2nd Entrepreneur Challenge around May 2022, with the final pitch competition scheduled to be held around September-October 2022. We plan to begin accepting early and regular applications. Faculty, staff, and students of the University are encouraged to take up the challenge of creating social value. FLOuRISH students are especially encouraged to contact us if they are interested, as we will enhance our backup system.
