University Startup Challenge, Urban Innovation and Youth Entrepreneurship

The fourth edition of the University Startup Challenge, promoted by Milanese universities and supported by the MUSA research ecosystem, involved over 400 students from all over Italy in designing innovative solutions for smart cities, strengthening the link between academic education, urban sustainability and youth entrepreneurship.

The fourth edition of the University Startup Challenge, an initiative aimed at university students from Milan and the national scene, was successfully concluded with the aim of promoting the development of innovative solutions for a smart city. The 2025 edition saw unprecedented participation, with over 400 applications, 350 students actually involved and the formation of 74 work teams. The event was organized by B4i – Bocconi for Innovation together with the Entrepreneurship Clubs of seven universities (Bocconi, Statale, Politecnico di Milano, Bicocca, Cattolica, LIUC and Università di Padova), brought together in the E-Club Ventures circuit. The project benefited from the patronage of the Municipality of Milan and the support of the MUSA – Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action research ecosystem, with the active contribution of partners such as PoliHub, Fondazione Unimi, UniSmart and ComoNext.

The initiative is part of the promotion of student entrepreneurship oriented towards sustainability and urban efficiency, with the aim of stimulating concrete ideas for improving life in cities through emerging technologies and innovative services. Structured as a hackathon distributed in several phases, the Challenge began with the official inauguration on April 11 at the University of Milan, followed the next day by training sessions dedicated to the smart city and business start-ups. Between April 13 and 30, participants worked remotely, supported by a team of 16 mentors selected from researchers, entrepreneurs and university professors, to develop and refine their project ideas. The final phase was held on May 7 at Bocconi University, where the ten finalist teams presented their projects to a jury composed of industry experts, investors and representatives of the business world.

A distinctive element of the 2025 edition was the focus on the interdisciplinarity of the working groups, with the aim of fostering transversal cooperation between different skills and different universities. Participants were encouraged to collaborate in a heterogeneous way to develop credible and scalable solutions. Each team presented a mandatory pitch deck and, in some cases, also a prototype or demo of their project.

Six winning projects were selected for their originality, applicability and potential impact. The Polyneta team developed a platform for connecting startups and public administrations; Rask proposed an automated invoicing system based on artificial intelligence; Freego designed a solution to monitor the conservation of food products in refrigerators; Protecto presented an intelligent urban safety network; EcoNexus developed a modular system for heat recovery data centers; EVeezy developed a shared electric charging service. The winning projects received prizes offered by the initiative's partners, including access to incubation and acceleration programs, personalized mentorships and networking opportunities with actors in the innovation ecosystem.

The Challenge, supported by the voluntary work of over fifty students, confirms itself as a concrete platform to promote the meeting between the academic and business worlds, contributing to the training of a new generation of innovators capable of addressing the challenges of urban sustainability. The growing interest registered and the high level of the projects presented testify to the potential of initiatives of this type in promoting bottom-up innovation, enhancing the creativity and resourcefulness of young people.