5/16/13
Personal Finance App wins competition amongst ICT students | di-ve - Malta's news, lifestyle & classified
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Personal Finance App wins competition amongst
ICT students
Article By: di-ve.com news
editorial@di-ve.com
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A personal finance management application, 'Denarii', developed by University students Lukas
Plaehn and Patrick Buhagiar emerged as the winner in the recent competition amongst Univeristy
ICT students ' The Million Dollar Idea'. The competition was held recently at the newly inaugurated
Microsoft Innovation Center.
“The Million Dollar Idea” is a student-oriented business-start-up competition organized by the
University’s ICT Student Association, in collaboration with Nikita Logachev, the idea originator and
the Microsoft Innovation Centre. This event, which is the first of its kind, took place over an entire
weekend at the Microsoft Innovation Centre, Skyparks.
“Students have so much potential and great ideas but at times, they also lack the right resources
they would need in order to actuate their plans. However, this event helped create the awareness
that resources are now available and can be used by whoever feels he has the right idea to
develop,” stated Edward Portelli, Business Development Manager of the Microsoft Innovation
Center.
“A few teams from those who participated in this event are already pursuing their plans and making
use of the facilities and resources which they were introduced during their event here at the MIC.
Despite these teams not winning the competition, it is highly positive that they are still in pursuit
of their start up,” added Mr Portelli.
During the event, students were given the chance to pitch their entrepreneurial ideas and work
with their team mates to create a start-up. In return, they received constructive feedback about
the feasibility of their ideas by mentors and judges, based on a business strategy developed by the
students over the three days. A total of 8 teams made up of five participants each competed in
this first edition.
During the event, the teams were given the opportunity to speak to different mentors and receive
feedback on their ideas as well as instructions as to how best to develop their business strategy.
On the final day, every team presented its idea to all the participants and judges.
The runner-up team was “Project Echo” comprised of Jospeh Trapani, Anthea Agius Anastasi,
Donald Dalli and Adrian Duca. A special mention was also given to team “Bus Mats” by Latvian
Erasmus student Robert Viksne.
This event was sponsored by Microsoft, Newtech, Ixaris, MITA and GO. ICTSA is the University of
Malta’s ICT Student Association through which IT students interact with each other and share
ideas, while strengthening their individual capabilities, especially through academic-related events
and competitions.
There are plans for the event to be held again next year due to the success of this 1st edition of
'The Million Dollar Idea'.
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