Again this year, the young entrepreneurial students from Slovenia convincingly defeated the international competition. The TAFR team with its autonomous robot for vineyard maintenance is the winner of the international competition for the best ICT business idea.

At the end of October, the biggest fair in the field of information and communication technology in Italy »SMAU« was held, and within its framework the »CREA ICT Business Idea Contest«. Among 14 best start-up teams from seven countries that were presented the Slovenian team TAFR, which upgraded its innovative idea at the CREA »Green Future« Summer Academy, convincingly took the first place. In July, the Ljubljana Urban Region Regional Development Agency (RRA LUR) and the Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana (UL FRI) organised the second CREA Summer Academy in Ljubljana, European Green Capital 2016, where the participants, with the assistance of experienced mentors, learned about creative service and product planning approaches and were able to test and improve their business ideas in interdisciplinary teams. The CREA Summer Academies under the slogan »Creativity and ICT for New Entrepreneurship« were held in six partner countries, that is, in addition to Slovenia, in Estonia, Greece, Italy, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, with the participation of 300 young students, future entrepreneurs. All winners of Summer Academies took part in the »CREA ICT Business Idea Contest«. And so Slovenia was represented by the aMediMat team with their innovative patch for chronic wound treatment with stem cells and the TAFR team with a robot using computer vision to autonomously move through vineyards, asses the state of vines and, if necessary, additionally fertilise and protect them. With its comprehensive presentation and innovative idea, the latter impressed a 14 member international jury, comprised of investors and representatives of support environments. The first three teams were awarded with an opportunity to join one of the three European incubators, namely the PoliHub in Milano, the Business Incubator Tallinn and the Crosspring Incubator in the Netherlands. One of the core aims of this year’s CREA Summer Academy was again forging interdisciplinary ties within start-up teams, which again proved to be the right direction. According to Janez Cimerman, member of the TAFR team, this is what, also in their case, significantly contributed to the quick and successful development of the idea. At the award ceremony he underscored: »We came to the CREA Summer Academy with a developed idea, but it turned out to be commercially deficient. With the assistance of mentors, new team members from different fields and other participants we drastically improved our original business model. We also got more motivation and new ideas we will implement in our prototype as soon as possible.« Tina Pezdirc Nograšek, MA, Project Head at the RRA LUR, also attended the event and when the Slovenian team won yet again she stressed that success, when faced with such broad international competition, also serves as proof that the CREA Summer Academy Ljubljana has a high quality programme, top mentors and is well organised: »Slovenians have proven again that we can create comprehensive formulas that lead to success of Slovenian start-up teams at international level. The CREA Summer Academy as an educational and experimental platform represents an environment which addresses new challenges in start-up company development and their education, and further on facilitates the integration of new approaches in educational programmes.«