Students compete with… Kolokasi in a Pan-European Entrepreneurship Competition

Our young people can and have proven that if they have the right supplies and support they can excel. After the excellent results of the previous two years of the JA StartUp Program, this year we followed business ideas that exceeded all expectations. The final and the Award Ceremony took place on Friday, June 3, 2022 at the Tassos Papadopoulos Amphitheater of the Cyprus University of Technology in Limassol.

The competition was the culmination of the efforts of over 200 students / three, aged 18-30. During the event, 8 finalists from the 45 student companies created in 2022, had the opportunity to present their innovative business ideas and were evaluated through interviews by the Jury.

The jury consisted of Mr. Andreas Papadopoulos, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement Cyprus, the Co-founder of 3 biotechnology companies Mrs. Marianna Prokopi Dimitriadis, the Deputy CEO of ASBIS, Mr. Costas Tziamalis, the co-founder and CEO of Malloc, Ms. Maria Terzis, Mr. Konstantinos Loizidis, Member of the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement Cyprus and the General Manager of the Institute of Research and Innovation, Mr. Theodoros Loukaidis.

After two very successful years, especially that of 2020, during which the student start-up AID4ALL won the 1st place in the European competition and the Audience Choice Award. This year the program was implemented in 3 Universities of Cyprus, with the support of 7 academics and 18 mentors.

Business concept of the year 2022 the idea of ​​the team emerged Kolokasi Delicacies, which aims to offer tasty and nutritious food choices based on Kolokasi grown in Cyprus. Their buyers are mostly vegetarians, vegans and diabetics, who have limited options. The product line consists of chips, zucchini bites and will be expanded into multi-purpose zucchini flour. The team of the University of Cyprus was supported by their professor Dr. Dana Nikolaou and their mentor Mr. Mario Kolokasidis.

The team came second Utopia. The team created DiaBerry which is an innovative fermented blueberry juice that has probiotic strains. Utopia aims to prevent the scourge called "Diabetes" by maintaining a proper and balanced diet, as it provides antioxidant and antimicrobial properties to the consumer. The team comes from the Cyprus University of Technology with professors Dr. Dimitris Tsaltas and Dr. Foti Papadima and mentor Maria Gianni.

The team took the third place HYPERION Microgrid Technologies, from the University of Cyprus, which proposes the design and development of an advanced micro-network surveillance platform through Android programming and the provision of a flexible, reliable and economical solution in the context of monitoring and control of micro-networks. The team was supported by Professor Dr. Dana Nikolaou as well as their mentor Dr. Nikolas Nikolaou.

Η Kolokasi Delicacies will represent Cyprus in the European Competition of JA Europe, GEN-E which will be held on July 12 - 15 and will be hosted by JA Estonia, in Tallinn. The Cypriot team will be represented by Chara Neophytou, Andreas Polykarpou, Vassilis Kyrlitsias, Panagiotis Koutsou, Konstantinos Komodromou.