The University of Seville has once again celebrated its 17th Entrepreneurship Ideas Competition , organized by the University's Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship Secretariat . This year's competition had a total of 635 participants, including students, graduates, teaching and research staff, and administrative and service staff.

The first prize for the best initiative promoted by teaching and research staff , endowed with 6,000 euros for the establishment or consolidation of the company, has been awarded to BioMixing, developed by Javier Dávila Martín, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Fluid Mechanics at the Higher Technical School of Engineering of the University of Seville. This project focuses on agitation technology in bioreactors to increase the productivity of numerous biotechnology and pharmaceutical processes.

The best student initiative was UAVisual Maintenance , a proposal by Ricardo Jorge Dias Martins and Fernando Ramón Cid Vázquez, students of the Master's Program in Aeronautical Engineering at the School of Engineering of the University of Seville. This proposal is based on the detection of cracks in aircraft fuselages using UAVs. As a reward, the team received two scholarships to attend the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Social Council of the University of Seville has also awarded two scholarships to attend the European Innovation Academy in Porto Respira project , due to its social impact and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, the student-led initiative consists of a platform that analyzes the environmental performance of companies and offers customized solutions using artificial intelligence.

The Austral Venture prize , endowed with 3,000 euros, was presented by Jaime Ventura Escacena, partner and co-founder of Austral Venture Gestión SGEIC, and was once again awarded to the proposal of Professor Dávila Martín, BioMixing .

The final, held in the Auditorium of the Faculty of Economics and Business (FCEYE), featured the 20 candidates who had advanced to this final stage. Twelve of these candidates were students and graduates, and eight were faculty and staff. Once again, the multidisciplinary nature of the participants and their proposals was noteworthy. Of these, seven initiatives received recognition : BioMixing, Letra x Letra, Smart Chair, UAVisual Maintenance, Agrosalud, DryFeet, and Respira.

Felipe Rosa, Vice-Rector for Knowledge Transfer at the University of Seville, was in charge of presenting the awards during the final, along with the Vice-Dean of Research, Transfer and Entrepreneurship at FCEYE, Francisco Liñán Alcalde; the Vice-President of the Social Council, Jesús Jiménez Cano; and the Director of the Secretariat for Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship, Catalina Gómez Quiles.

This activity has been carried out for seventeen years and aims to identify entrepreneurial teams at the University of Seville that present innovative ideas stemming from the academic work developed at the institution. The ultimate goal is to promote the creation of Knowledge-Based Companies (KBCs) at the University of Seville.

The competition offers a comprehensive support process, from the initial idea to a validated business model . Throughout the competition, the entrepreneurial teams receive training and mentoring to help them develop their business model and prepare it for public launch.