Seven universities will participate in the innovation festival iNOVUSS this week

The innovation festival iNOVUSS will start on Friday 30 August this year. Over three days the festival will bring together everyone from experts on technological creativity and innovative entrepreneurship, to curious families with children. The Bank of Ideas tent will act as a warm-up to the new academic year. Representatives of seven universities will take part: Riga Technical University (RTU), Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU), the University of Latvia, BA School of Business and Finance, the Latvian Maritime Academy, the University of Liepāja, and the Ventspils University of Applied Sciences.

These universities are brought together by the Innovation Grants for Students programme in which they are either already participating in or plan to do so. The Bank of Ideas is intended to act as a platform for fresh ideas and provide networking opportunities to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship among school pupils and university students.

Visitors to the tent will be able to learn about the programme and the opportunities it provides, such as study courses and training opportunities as well as support tools for entrepreneurship and for promoting innovations that are available to anyone interested, such as programmes at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) in Latvia. Throughout the festival visitors to the Bank of Ideas will be able to meet the universities’ representatives, receive answers to their questions, learn about cooperation opportunities and receive detailed information about activities for developing entrepreneurship skills – pre-incubators, incubators, the DEMOLA Latvia programme, study courses and research projects.

From 16:00 onwards on Friday 30 August, visitors will have the opportunity to learn about activities organised by RTU and RSU EIT.

From 11:00 until early evening on Saturday 31 August, young and aspiring entrepreneurs, researchers, innovation promoters and representatives of the higher education system will meet in the tent to discuss various ways of supporting entrepreneurship at both university and secondary school levels.

At 15:00 on Saturday 31 August, event moderator Juris Šleiers will host a special discussion on the Smart Café stage together with six university students who own businesses in various stages. They will be sharing inspirational stories about the difficulties they have overcome to get to where they are.

From 11:00 on Sunday 1 September, the organisers will host activities designed specifically for families with children in the university tent. Visitors will be presented with innovatively packaged knowledge about healthy nutrition, all young visitors will be encouraged to learn more about engineering sciences, and will be able to explore a virtual reality maze to discover what profession they are most suited for. Visitors will also be able to learn the basics of programming and how to tie sailors’ knots.