While many students might be enjoying some down time in their semester break, an enthusiastic group of 60, including University of Auckland students and staff, have been participating in Ideate! Validate! 2017.

This year’s group included representatives from nearly every faculty and students from undergraduates to PhD level.

One student commented “I was tossing up whether to go away with my family these holidays or do this course. I made the right decision. I’m so glad I did this course as it has changed my life.”

Ideate! Validate! is a venture accelerator programme that runs over the semester break and is free for all students and staff at the University of Auckland. This is the second year that the programme has taken place.

Participants in the programme develop ideas for ventures and take them to the next level. No experience is necessary, anyone can apply for the programme which tends to attract those with an enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and who feel inspired to give it a go.

A highlight for participants this year was hearing Rochelle Harrison talk about her journey in starting The Wellington Chocolate Factory. Rochelle flew up from Wellington to inspire the audience with her story and share her amazing and delicious chocolate.

“The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship really does help inspiring young entrepreneurs to take that next step in innovating their ideas for our future. It’s exciting to see them embracing these new opportunities.”

Ideate! Validate! was supported by 30 amazing mentors, advisors and judges who volunteered their time for the programme. They included a stand out final panel of Martin Enright, Jonathan Boswell (Wine Grenade) and Debra Hall, who gave up half a day to provide feedback to our students.

A wide range of interesting projects were generated including CareAid, a ‘home-test’ kit for chlamydia and gonorrhoea breaking down the common barriers to accessing testing; Grow2Cycle, a subscription service for ‘pet-plants’ to introduce children to growing their own food; and Ethertech, a model of pharmaceuticals that involves the engineering of organisms that colonise a patient and produce useful bioactives.

Will Austin, Ideate! Validate! advisor said “we are pretty excited about the possibilities of some of these ideas, hence our passion to see them through.”

Being involved as an advisor or mentor for Ideate! Validate! is incredibly rewarding. They get to see students grow from having no ideas, and no idea what to do with their ideas, to having well-thought through business concepts, with research and market validation behind them.

Ideate! Validate! 2017 advisor Jenny Nguyen could “see a lot of potential in the ideas” and judge Martin Enright found the participants “an awe-inspiring bunch.”

At least half the course participants are continuing to work on developing their ideas with funding support from the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Many will take their ideas through Velocity’s $100K Challenge.

Ideate! Validate! 2017 judge Debra Hall predicts that student Wayman Puna and his company Ethertech is “going to be famous”. Watch this space!

Participants of Ideate! Validate! 2017.