The University of Reykjavik (Háskólinn í Reykjavík, HR, Iceland) –a member of the European University of Brain and Technology, NeurotechEU– has delivered the Winter School: Practical Entrepreneurship for PhDs. Jorge Maldonado, a student on the Neurosciences Doctoral Programme at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH), was the beneficiary of the place offered by NeurotechEU at UMH.

The objective of this winter school was to enable attendees to become entrepreneurs, should they wish to, equipped with the necessary skills and tools to transform scientific discoveries into viable innovations. According to Maldonado, the training was a departure from the basic science to which he dedicates his day-to-day work; however, it allowed him to gain a general view of the business world as applied to science. Furthermore, “they gave us very useful advice related to managing patents and, especially, on managing information while securing a patent,” the PhD student added.

When Jorge applied for the available place, he did so with the idea of addressing a lack of knowledge regarding how to transform a prototype into the final product distribution. The programme included various workshops where students had to create a group business plan and simulate the sale of the idea they worked on. In his case, applying the newly acquired knowledge in marketing strategies, business plans, patents, and artificial intelligence, Maldonado’s group invented the idea of Ecolink, a platform to reduce mass tourism.

The winter school programme, which took place on the Háskólinn í Reykjavík campus in Reykjavik, included social activities where attendees could get to know each other and enjoy the Icelandic Northern Lights.

This mobility was financed by the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, as part of the European University of Brain and Technology–NeurotechEU alliance. This alliance is a project co-funded by the European Union with the aim of promoting transnational training in Europe, creating an international network of knowledge and training, in this case, focused on neurotechnology.