The Executive Director of the Fund of Funds (FoF), Mr. Martin Gikov, was a guest mentor at the "Weekend of Ideas" event held on 28 and 29 January in Sofia Tech Park. It was attended by nearly 500 students from 30 cities.
The two-day event is part of the year-long program to promote entrepreneurial thinking, innovative business approaches and start-up culture among Bulgarian students aged between 16 and 18, entitled Teenovator . The programme was launched in 2018 as a pilot initiative in four schools and has since successfully served as a link between renowned entrepreneurs and forward-thinking young people.
The Ideas Weekend competition is a hands-on opportunity for young people to present their business ideas for the first time to a high-profile audience of representatives from different professional fields, as well as to build on the knowledge and skills they have acquired so far by integrating the experiences of start-ups and mature companies as recreated by mentors during the event.
In this year's edition of the Ideas Weekend, participants worked on over 80 start-up ideas along with their mentors. As part of the mentoring team, Martin Gikov shared success stories and personal experience from his career with the next generation of innovators. In his talks with the young people, he focused on topics such as how to identify the right target group for their business project and how to structure their product or service so that it can be successfully commercialised and get the resources needed for its realisation. Participants received mentoring on how to prepare a business plan, analyze the financials in the context of which they can unfold their general idea, and prepare to make a convincing pitch to potential investors and business angels. Martin Gikov told the teams what the Fund of Funds is and how it works, as well as about the opportunities available within the seed financing ecosystem.
Together with the mentors, the participants worked on ideas and business models from different areas, including in the field of education, for example, a programme where older students train younger students, and a platform for counselling future university students based on the profile of their academic interests in order to orient them to the most suitable university). In the context of ESG and green initiatives, the participants worked on containers for waste battery separation and recycling; in the gaming industry area, they focused on developing a thematic escape room based on a TV reality format. At the end of the two-day event, a jury of renowned experts evaluated all project presentations in 12 categories, including "Most Sustainable Business Model", "Best Pitch", "Most memorable brand", "Best Market Launch Strategy", etc.
The FoF Executive Director commented on his experience with the event by saying, "I am happy to have had the opportunity to take part as a mentor in the Ideas Weekend. The teams demonstrated high commitment and creative energy. The added value of having mentors coming from the entrepreneurial environment is huge as they have the chance to lay the practical foundation of skills that will help young people set up their own business with a mission and a strong identity."
