Entrepreneurial Spirit among University Students in Pontevedra: A Growing Trend

Has entrepreneurial spirit the university student body in Pontevedra? Well, it depends on who you ask, but the truth is that on a campus focused on creativity, there is an interest in creating. their own companies to students linked to sectors such as modahe until o to communicationespecially in the section of the advertisingfrom those companies founded by the first classes of graduates (Era Comunicación, Trisquelia, Ovo Publicidade…) to more recent projects such as DOGOStrategy or Nortecreando communication consultancies.

In recent years, initiatives related to the designthe illustrationthe Photography and the social networks; audiovisual and also fashion, with proper names such as Rubearth (Gabriel Nogueira), Abdomen Juncal o Suagongo (Raquel Suarez).

One of the initiatives of the University of Vigo to promote business initiatives is Incuvi Emprendea pre-incubator created twelve years ago for business ideas launched by the students, which also translates into awards in form of training and advice to create a business plan. Subsequently, it was expanded to consolidate these ideas and turn them into viable businesses through the following phases: Incuvi Avanza and, more recently, Incuvi Consolidate.

“A few years ago, very few people from the Pontevedra campus attended these entrepreneurship programs,” explains the director of UVigo’s Employment and Entrepreneurship Area, Maruxa Álvarez. “But in recent years there is a repute important”. Since she took office, in 2019, “there are always one or two campus teams” that compete with their ideas for this award. Usually, she points out, they come from Forest Engineering and Physiotherapy, but above all from Communication and related to the textile sector promoted by graduates of the Master’s Degree in Design and Creative Direction in Fashion or of Fine Arts.”This year, for example, two Fine Arts projects linked to textile sector“.

Refers to projects Iniqualof Alexander Sierra and Cayetana of Ozamic o NEVER[A]by Andy González, selected in the Incuvi Avanza last January. In Incuvi Emprende they chose another four from the campus, linked to Fine Arts, Publicidade, Education and Physiotherapy, the latter Cycling against Parkinson’semerged from a doctoral program.

Álvarez points out that these programs focus “on training in entrepreneurial competition“. Besides, they promote other initiatives within their area, such as training seminars, although, he admits, those linked to the civil service are more successful than to entrepreneurship. “Until very recently – he points out – entrepreneurship was not part of no curriculum but now it is more usual to include some related subject, especially in programs of postgraduatesuch as Innovation and Entrepreneurship” that she herself teaches in a master’s degree in terrestrial biodiversity.

From the TFG to reality

He facultyhe stresses, “which should be the main prescriberhas no training” in this regard, something that is being solved with the call for courses. “We also created a network of entrepreneurial teaching staff” to promote this spirit among the students from each of the disciplines of the degrees taught on the three campuses. Thus, they should promote training activities and stimulation of entrepreneurship among the students of your center, support the organization and dissemination of activities in this regard and, above all, propose final degree projects o end of master susceptible to transfer to society, or what is the same, to become prosperous business. They should also encourage them to be part of the Incuvi program and to participate in the Hive of Ideas, an “open innovation” initiative to incorporate talent into companies. It consists of these launching a challenge or a need into the university environment in order for the students to expose and develop possible solutions or improvements.

That is why UVigo created this initiative to channel those challenges proposed by companies and institutions and serve as a “transmission band” to reach the entire university community. In this way, at the same time that they receive ideas for their end-of-degree projects (TFG) or end-of-master’s (TFM) they open a path of job placement.

This question, that of linking end-of-degree or master’s projects to an entrepreneurial initiative that materializes in real life, is also one of the proposals of Pedro Figueroa. The veteran professor, who has just retired, was integrated into the Department of Business Organization and Marketing and taught classes on campus as Advertising. Where it continues at the foot of the canyon is in the direction of Pont-Up Store, the largest entrepreneurship space in Galicia that this year celebrates its tenth edition. will be held again in Pontevedra the days September 29 and 30.

Some of the initiatives that come to Pont-Up, already converted into real companies, were promoted by graduates of the campus of Pontevedrabut they are a minority.

foreign students

“In general, for years in my subject there was work on business creation and product innovation, but people it is difficult for him to undertake“, says Figueroa.

He points out that among the bachelor’s and master’s degrees taught on the Pontevedra campus “there are no none of companyproperly”, except “some specific content in a subject of Publicidade or Audiovisual Communication”. In fact, he remembers, he always taught some subject in which a business project was created, but “from the Plan Bologna hours were reduced” and it was impossible to fit this task and the teaching follow-up that it entails in the curriculum.

Likewise, Figueroa considers that “entrepreneurship should be encouraged” through the TFG and TFM, turning these works into business creation projectssomething that is not usually done because “it is costly in time”.

Also bet on giving “local treatment” to the projects submitted to the Incuvi awards, an incubator designed precisely for these incipient ideas, as opposed to the Pont-Up Store, aimed at “companies that have already started”, even if they are new.

The key is to “encourage” entrepreneurship from the classroom. The two most prone degrees, he points out, are Fine Arts and Advertisingalthough as they are unique titles in Galicia, they have a lot of foreign students“from Coruña or Santiago”, so that “the few entrepreneurial initiatives that may exist do not materialize in Pontevedra”.

That is why he believes that “we should encourage people who have initiative stay” in the capital of Lérez, because “it is a very attractive city to set up new companies”, thanks to its “quality of life”. In any case, he admits, “starting a company without experience is a difficult subject” and that is why “people want to first learn the job” working, for example, “in communication agencies employed by someone else before daring with their own entrepreneurial initiative,” says the veteran professor and researcher.

10% want to undertake at the end of their studies