Startup Festival Held in Poltava Oblast With PLEDDG Support

On September 18, five best business ideas were presented by the participants of Urban Business Fest, organized at the behest of the city authorities, the Kremenchuk Development Institute, and with the support of PLEDDG.

Laura Hagg, PLEDDG Senior Governance Advisor, greeted the participants of the festival:

“I am happy that in such a difficult time, during a pandemic, entrepreneurs and local authorities create opportunities to receive and support innovative ideas. I am confident that today’s participants of the startup competition will move forward in achieving their entrepreneurial dreams, and the festival will continue being an effective component in building a partnership between government and business.”

“Business for everyone” – this is how the organizers position the festival, which aims to encourage young people to engage in entrepreneurship by sharing the success of starting businesses from entrepreneurs from different cities of Ukraine, increasing knowledge of business marketing tools trends, scaling business and investment.

“Urban Business Fest for us is a powerful platform for the promotion of small and medium-sized businesses,” said the co-organizer of the festival Pavlo Bedratskyi, Acting Director of ME “Institute for Development of Kremenchuk”. “The initiative of holding a competition of startups has already been introduced in many cities of Ukraine, so we want to keep up with the times. Supporting innovative ideas of local entrepreneurs is very important for creating a positive business climate, effective competition, and increasing the involvement of young people in entrepreneurship.”

During the day in Prydniprovsky Park, about 100 participants of the festival were able to attend workshops, presentations, listen to speeches of business experts in three sections:

1) “Success Stories” – owners of social enterprises, IT agencies, environmental projects shared their experience;
2) “Business Builder” – a workshop on business modeling;
3) “Startup Battle”, with 5 finalists of the competition taking part.

A certificate for UAH 50,000 and expert support from PLEDDG was awarded to Tetiana Maryniuk, an entrepreneur from Kremenchuk with a model for implementing “Podiatric Practice”. The winner of the startup battle shared her impressions of participating in the business festival:

“Preparing for the participation in the startup battle was, of course, crucial – consultations of Alina Bocharnikova, a PLEDDG expert, helped me with this, on numerous occasions we held ZOOM meetings, developed a business plan, decided how to present the project in the best way. I plan to invest the prize money in equipment for podiatric practice, but I’m also very grateful for the certificate for 10 consultations from PLEDDG on the first business steps.”

Difficult times for the world economy make new demands on local economic development. Flexibility, creativity, innovation, and unification are the components of effective crisis prevention, which were successfully combined by the Kremenchuk’s Business Festival. PLEDDG is happy to be a partner of this event and has confidence in its successful prospects in the future.