The Mission

To start with, here is our initial Golden Circle: Why: We strive to support the growth of a new generation of students equipped with the right skills to meet industry demands, while empowering businesses to make informed, strategic, and socially responsible decisions through impactful collaboration. How: By streamlining the collaboration process between academia and industry, we enable them to lay the foundation for a new era of cooperation, transforming the traditional education system. What: We are creating an intermediary digital platform that connects universities and companies, enabling students to work on real-world business cases, delivering both academic and commercial value. Further Elaboration: UBIridge is dedicated to transforming the way academia and businesses collaborate, by creating a platform that connects universities and companies for real-world project engagement. Our mission is to provide students with hands-on experience while enabling businesses to leverage fresh academic perspectives and cost-effective solutions. By facilitating mutually beneficial collaborations, we help universities modernize their curriculum and prepare students for the professional world. Our platform empowers businesses, especially SMEs and startups, to access innovative research and strategies while bridging the gap between theory and practice. UBIridge aims to be the catalyst for future-ready partnerships that drive innovation and industry advancement.

The Challenge

According to our validation, here are the key problems we have identified so far: Universities: The current connection flow with companies is unreliable. Universities and teachers heavily rely on relationship managers and their personal networks to establish collaborations. The process of linking with companies is inefficient, requiring universities to spend significant resources (especially time) to maintain a consistent flow of contacts. Companies: Collaboration opportunities are typically available to only a small number of large corporations due to a lack of information on these opportunities. Companies often wish to collaborate with multiple universities, but it is inconvenient to manage separate platforms for each collaboration, as is the case with custom platforms many universities develop. Many SMEs and startups are unaware that they can collaborate with university students to address business needs, improve their hiring processes, and enhance their CSR compliance. Even though companies are willing to invest time, effort, and money, they are currently not collaborating with universities. Students: Students tend to be less motivated when working on theoretical cases rather than real-world scenarios. Currently, some of the chosen companies for the collaborations do not invest enough time or effort, leading to disengaged students, lack of real data, minimal feedback, and ultimately, mediocre project outcomes. Opportunity: Our solution addresses all these challenges, while also enabling companies to assess students’ performance over time, helping identify top talent and offering early professional opportunities.

The solution

We are introducing a dynamic software platform designed for teachers, businesses, students, and universities. Here’s how it works: Course Upload: Professors can easily input course details, including manuals, duration, and specific requirements, along with their contact information. Business Access: Once uploaded, courses become instantly visible to businesses, allowing them to apply with their case studies in PDF format, including contact details and LinkedIn profiles. Matchmaking: Interested businesses can apply to courses that align with their needs, and all applications are forwarded directly to the professors. Connection: If a potential synergy is identified, professors can reach out directly using the provided business contact information, facilitating a seamless initiation of the partnership. Please note that these are just the core functionalities of our MVP 1.0, and we have plans for many additional features in our pipeline. You can open the first MVP at https://ubiridge.com/ (Beware that it works best on PC/laptop)