Starters Academy is taught exclusively in English and consists of three hours of in-person classes per week, held at different locations, as specified in the program.

Selected participants may be Portuguese or international students enrolled at the bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD level.

Students will be organized into multidisciplinary teams, each composed of at least two students from different NOVA academic units. Teams will collaborate on the development of a business plan and participate in the EntrepSim simulation game, which recreates the environment of a technology-based start-up and its challenges in product development, investment attraction, and licensing.

At the end of the program, each team will pitch its project at the final Demo Day before a jury panel, which will select the best project.

The Entrepreneurship Simulator EntrepSim is an advanced simulator of a startup environment that was developed by academics and investors as a pedagogical tool to be used as a complement to the teaching and practice of entrepreneurship.

The simulation environment is a Tech-based Startup and is already pre-defined. The game will have 5 rounds of decisions and each decision will influence the output. Each team will be playing the same game simultaneously, but the decisions each team consider are individual and will generate different results.

Will you be able to transform the start-up in an unicorn?

The final grade of each student results from the following components:

• Business Plan (30%)
• EntrepSim (20%)
• Pitch (30%)
• Presence and participation in classes (20%)

The successful completion of the program will also credit you with at least 6 ECTS, depending on your Academic Unit recognition of the discipline as part of the official optional subjects.