The Academic Working Capital program is now open for registration for the 2016 edition. Undergraduate Engineering and Exact Sciences students may submit their Final Projects up until November 23rd on the program’s website. Those selected will receive financial, technical and business support to open their own business. In 2016, the program will invest up to R$ 700,000 in projects aimed at creating new technology-based companies by college students.
The second edition of Academic Working Capital will have new features, starting with the duration: instead of one semester, the program will be held throughout the year. “We will have much more space for learning, to perform engineering tests and with the user, which will offer a great gain for the process,” said mechatronics engineer Diogo Dutra, AWC content coordinator. Teams must have 2-4 members, of which at least one member must be enrolled in the Final Project execution phase in the Engineering and Exact Sciences fields. The rest of the group may be from another semester of any undergraduate course.
Besides São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, university teams from Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Distrito Federal can also enroll, provided that the institution has a minimum grade of 4 in the General Course index (IGC) of the Ministry of Education. For the executive coordinator of Academic Working Capital, Marcos Barretto, the participation of teams from different subjects and locations will bring great benefit to the groups.
“We expect to bring more ideas and different views that will help the students themselves, based on the dynamics of everyone taking part in the discussions of their project’s group. Thus, we allow everyone to grow beyond their own project and reflect broadly on the business of the other teams, amplifying knowledge,” explains Marcos, who is a professor in the Department of Mechatronics Engineering and Robot Systems at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (Poli-USP).
The participants of the 2015 AWC are receiving distance follow-up by the program monitors. The second on-site workshop will be held between December 7th and 10th, and the groups will present their prototypes to investors at an Investments Fair on December 11th. “It’s been very positive. The groups that came are fairly skilled. During the first workshop they responded very well to the market feedback and were able to adapt to the new business models they are proposing,” says Diogo.
