The Startup Summer runs online over 2 weeks - with weekends free for you to relax.  Activities will be scheduled across the 10 weekdays from 10-12 and 1-3pm.

You will follow two cycles of startup discovery, initially focused on a 'challenge' as part of a team, with a pitch to industry experts.

You may then continue with the same challenge or follow your own startup idea with a final pitch to a Funders Panel.

This cycle will start with a focus on Idea Generation and Exploration activities - including:

• Introduction to Startup Summer and Lean Startup Processes

• Workshop - Find your Startup Why

• Workshop - Identifying your Genius

• Divide into teams

  • Discover the initial challenge

  • Generate Ideas

• Workshop - identify and validate a problem to solve

• Mentoring sessions

• IBM Design Thinking Talk and Workshop (tbc)

The focus will then shift to producing a Minimum Viable Product, including:

• Introduction to MVPs

• Teams building non technical MVPs

Throughout the cycle, there will also be Startup Talks and Mentoring sessions

The cycle will finish with a Pitch to an Industry Panel

This cycle will initially focus on Digital for Startups, including:

• An interactive session on Pivot or Persevere?

• Technical tools for MVPs

• IBM workshop (details tbc)

• Software architecture/development advisory

The focus will then shift towards:

• Teams/individuals building technical MVPs

• IBM workshop on prototyping (tbc)

The Startup talks and Mentoring Sessions will continue during this cycle, including

• Growth for startups and what is a true MVP - What is a true MVP and how do startups approach growth in an affordable, effective way. We'll explore how to start to gain product market fit and launch quickly.

• What is Emerge? The University of Sheffield's Enterprise Offer - an introduction to the newly rebranded Emerge Enterprise offer for the University’s community, delving into next year's program of events, skill-building sessions and context-based enterprise challenges which will offer an opportunity for everyone to engage in interdisciplinary problem-solving.  The aim is for Startup Summer attendees to continue on a pathway into Enterprise, through the support of Emerge.

The cycle will finish with a practice pitch on Friday morning followed by selection then a Pitch to a Funders Panel in the afternoon

You will be able to :

• discover your Startup 'Why' through a group workshop

• choose a 'challenge' startup area to investigate with a team of attendees

• learn how to identify and validate a problem to solve through an interactive, industry-led, epiGenesys workshop

• listen to and question Industry experts talking about their own startup experiences

• have team and one on one mentoring sessions throughout the event for your startup idea/s

You will have the opportunity to meet industry

• Speakers

• Mentors

• Funders

• Advisers

These are expected to include Twinkl Hive, Barclays Eagle Labs, IBM, Emerge (UoS), Sheffield Digital and more.

You will give an early 'Challenge' pitch to industry experts.   Selected teams will also be able to pitch, on the last day, to a Funders Panel.

Yes - there is no charge for attendees this year.  You should bring a laptop.

No.  You should have an interest in learning about, and practising (Lean) Startup processes.

You will join a team initially and work on an initial challenge.  After the challenge pitch, you may then choose to change to your own startup idea.

No.  We are also happy to consider graduates, especially recent graduates.  The event is a Higher Education event, so you should either be, have been, or be intending to study at a higher education level.

Any idea can be appropriate, though the focus is on Digital Startups, i.e. startups with a significant digital aspect, which may or may not be the 'innovative' idea.

If your startup idea does not yet have a digital aspect, mentoring will be available to help you with this.

No.  We are keen to have a mixture of attendees from different disciplines, including engineering, business, legal, medical, etc.

No.  Your startup should expect to be sustainable, i.e. be able to exist for as long as it needs to.

Alternatives to commercial startups include:

• a startup to bring about change, after which it might then no longer be needed

• a community based startup that may be taken over, and run voluntarily, by a community

• an open source, software or hardware, startup

These kind of startups might not 'turn a profit' or expect to be sold in the future, but financial aspects usually need to be considered.

There are many reasons, including:

• entrepreneurship skills are one of the soft skills valued by employers

• you could create an 'internal' startup within a company in future

• it will be easier, and quicker, for you to create a startup in the future

• you will better understand startup culture and may decide to work for a startup