The winners of the VII All-Ukrainian student project competition "From idea to success" have been determined

 On October 26-27, 2023, the 2nd round of the All-Ukrainian student project competition "From Idea to Success" was held, organized by the Production and Investment Management Department of the Faculty of Agrarian Management of NUBiP of Ukraine, as part of the educational program "Management of Investment Activity and International Projects".

This year, 31 projects from students from four higher education institutions of Ukraine were submitted to the competition. The members of the jury, as usually, were representatives of business who can realistically assess the relevance and quality of the presented competitive projects.

The competition was opened by the founder of the Production and Investment Management Department, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lidiia Shynkaruk, who congratulated the members of the jury and those present and noted the acute relevance of the project activity in the conditions of both martial law and the gradual recovery of not only the economy, but also ecology and the entire society of Ukraine. Lidiia Shynkaruk also noted the main goal of this competition, which is to give today's youth the opportunity to realize their ideas and potential through the development and presentation of their own projects.

The head of the research department of NUBiP of Ukraine, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of NAAU Volodymyr Otchenashko made a welcome speech and conveyed greetings from the Rector of the University, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor Stanislav Nikolaienko and the entire administration. Volodymyr Otchenashko emphasized on the importance of conducting such competitions, which give young people the opportunity for self-realization, showing creativity in finding project ideas and developing project development competencies.

The idea of holding the competition, the organizers of the event and the participating students and members of the highly professional jury, which this year traditionally represented practices in the field of project and grant management, business and implementation of social projects, were welcomed. Those were:

• Vlad Koval, head of the Ukrainian Startup Office, co-founder of the Ukrainian Association of Startups, head of the financial department;
• Iryna Kononchuk, member of the board of the PO "Unity of the community means a prosperous village", specialist in the field of implementation of social projects, as well as financial management of transnational corporations;
• Roman Stepankov, director of the engineering company TOPENERGY LLC, which is engaged in the development and implementation of business projects;
• Maria Tsedik, candidate of sciences in public administration, head of the international relations department of Kyiv Business School, project manager of Erasmus+ projects.

The competition format included 2 rounds, the first of which took place the day before, i.e. on October 25, 2023. More information about the first round can be found at the following link: https://nubip.edu.ua/node/136152.

15 nominated projects were selected for participating in the second round, which were prepared by students of three faculties of NUBiP of Ukraine (faculty of agrarian management, humanitarian and pedagogical faculty and plant protection, biotechnology and ecology faculty), Lviv Polytechnic National University, Polissya National University and Irpin Professional College of Economics and Law .

One can get acquainted with the video presentations of the projects selected for the 2nd round at the following link: link here.

The participants defended their projects in two formats: on October 26, 2023, students defended their projects in person; October 27, 2023 – the jury evaluated the projects based on the submitted video presentations.

The project evaluation criteria were defined as:

• relevance of the chosen idea, its originality;
• complete disclosure of the project's goals and objectives;
• formulation and vision of the final result of the project;
• project risk assessment;
• the logic of project presentation;
• vision of project realization possibilities;
• creativity of project presentation.

According to the results of the evaluation of the projects on the first day, they took the following places:

the first place with the highest number of points and the Best Project nomination went to the project "Creation of the QueenBee Industrial Apiary" by Anna Krasnoshtan (scientific supervisor: Anna Dergach, PhD);

The following projects shared the second place:

"Agricultural trailer manufacturing project" by Oleksandr Bohdanyuk, Best Defense nomination (scientific supervisor: Kateryna Alekseieva, PhD);

"The project of using binary crops for the restoration of Ukrainian soils damaged as a result of a full-scale war" by Kateryna Mankiv, Best Innovation nomination (scientific supervisor: Ph.D., senior researcher Iryna Artemchuk);

The third place in terms of points went to the following projects:

"Opening of the anti-cafe "FREEDOM" by Eva Leim, nomination Best presentation of the project (scientific supervisor: Lyudmyla Kharchenko, Doctor of Economics);

"Weekend of Carpathian Impressions" by Svitlana Koval, nomination for "Originality of creative thinking" (supervisor: Doctor of Economics, Senior Researcher, Professor Anatolii Kucher).

The next stage was the evaluation of the projects based on the sent video presentations. The video viewing ended with a lively discussion by the members of the jury of the presented projects, where special attention was paid to their relevance, the logic of presentation and the level of preparation. Practitioner experts separately noted the professionalism of the projects developed by students of the "Management of Investment Activity and International Projects" educational program, calling them distinguished by a high level of calculations, industry and marketing research, practically ready for implementation.

The rating and nominations of the projects submitted for evaluation in the form of video presentations were distributed as follows:

the first place and the Best Agricultural Project nomination went to the project "Production and export of honey "Svitanok" Serhiy Dodachka, who impressed the jury with the reasonableness of the presented calculations (supervisor: Doctor of Economics, professor, member-correspondent of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lidiia Shynkaruk);

The second place went to the following projects:

"Business plan for the opening of an online school of social entrepreneurship" by Maryna Zheldak, nomination "Best project of social entrepreneurship" (scientific supervisor: Anna Dergach);

"Business plan for the creation of a farm "Jean-Paul & Berries" for the cultivation of honeysuckle" Dmytro Rekrotyuk, nomination "High level of mastery of modern methods of economic research" (scientific supervisor: Ph.D. Tetiana Vlasenko);

The third place was shared by the following projects:

"Business plan of a farm for the cultivation of technical hemp" by Oleksandr Ivanov, nomination "Best business project" (scientific supervisors: Doctor of Economics, Professor Maryna Dielini and Doctor of Economics, Professor Emiliia Prushkivska);

"Business plan of a craft workshop for making candles" by Inna Ruchka, nomination "Best industry project" (scientific supervisor: Doctor of Economics, professor, member-correspondent of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lidiia Shynkaruk);

"Business plan for the creation of an art studio" by Anastasia Shpyrko, nomination "Best project of creative realization of children and adults" (scientific supervisor: Doctor of Economics, professor, member-correspondent of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lidiia Shynkaruk).

The rest of the projects were awarded with the following nominations:

• "Business plan of Soul time anti-cafe" by Victoria Petrenko - nomination for "Actual student need" (scientific supervisor: PhD Svitlana Viter);
• "Opening of the mini-bakery "Mama's Baking" by Kateryna Shevchenko - nomination "Best regional project" (research supervisor: Doctor of Economics, professor, member-correspondent of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Lidiia Shynkaruk);
• "Clean environment" by Sofia Omelchenko - nomination "The best idea for solving an environmental problem" (scientific supervisor: PhD Tetiana Artyukh);
• "Peaceful feedback: supporting people during martial law" by Alvina Yermolenko - nomination "Best social project" (scientific supervisor: PhD Tetiana Artyukh).

When summing up the results of the competition, the members of the jury noted the relevance, importance and high level of preparation of all presented works. Practitioners noted the multifaceted nature of the competition projects, expressed their desire for further cooperation with students and expressed their readiness to support young startups. Vlad Koval invited the participants who took the second place in the competition to attend the accelerator organized by the Ukrainian Association of Startups for free. And Iryna Kononchuk offered help in the preparation of environmental and social projects before submitting them for attracting grant funding.

Therefore, we congratulate all the winners and participants of the competition and wish them successful implementation of their projects!

Tatiana LOBUNETS,
Associate Professor of the Production
and Investment Management Department

Translated by Kateryna ALEKSEIEVA