Ternopil University will teach European ways of doing business

Ternopil Ivan Puliui National Technical University (TNTU) launched a regional intercollegiate start-up center on November 22. It will be part of the TEMPUS European project, aiming to support student innovations and then help graduates to start their own competitive businesses. The university joined the project in November 2012. The program will last until 2015. Before opening the start-up center, its teachers underwent training in France, Portugal, Finland, and the UK. They will select 20 seniors as its first students. Overall, this project of the TEMPUS family involves 25 universities from 17 European countries, among them three more Ukrainian schools: Sumy State University, Kharkiv National University of Economics, and Kharkiv University of Architecture and Construction.

It is in step with world experience, the Ternopil researchers note. For example, every American university has such center where students learn the fundamentals of business and can establish businesses of their own even before graduation.

Students organized a flash mob event for visitors, showing an allegory of the start-up center’s activity. They showed how a seed, dropped into the soil and standing here for an idea, went on to germinate and bear fruit. “I wish this center to reveal talents of new Steve Jobses and Bill Gateses, whose ideas will change the world of technology,” deputy head of Ternopil Oblast State Administration Petro Hoch said in his greeting. Project participants from abroad attended the opening ceremony for the start-up center as well. Director of a consulting company from Portugal Antonio Marcos Nuceira said: “My company, too, started in a similarly small room provided by a university. We acted as a start-up center, having just three employees at first and seeking financial support from various foundations for our projects. You are in a similar situation here and now, and I am ready to transfer all my experience to help you develop this center.”

“It is certainly important not only to give a quality education, but also to teach students how to use their professional skills,” the TNTU’s rector, professor Petro Yasnii stressed. “We need this start-up center not only for this purpose, but also to promote the university’s integration into the European educational and research community.” Therefore, teachers and students alike hope that the local government, employment services, and businesses of Ternopil region will support the center. To mark its opening, the TNTU’s students have planted a few juniper trees in front of the university building, establishing a plant nursery there.