A new start-up programme aimed at UCD undergraduate students has selected its first participants.

UCD Startup Stars, developed by NovaUCD, the UCD Innovation Academy, will offer participants a four-week mentoring programme to work on their start-up ideas, including workshops, pitching sessions and networking opportunities. The teams are also being provided with office space at NovaUCD and a cash stipend.

Among the finalists are Clink the College Link, which is developing a database platform to give students an in-depth, personalised view on college courses in an attempt to address the high dropout rate in the first year of college, and Sole Sense, which is developing pressure-sensitive insoles for running shoes that link to an app and deliver information that could help prevent injury.

Also among the initial intake is car-pooling app CarGo; internship platform Contineo Solutions; social app Meep, and SmartCoffe, which combines cognitive enhancing ingredients with coffee to help boost memory, focus and productivity.

The teams were chosen following a three-month module at UCD’s Innovation Academy on creative thinking and entrepreneurial endeavour. Thirteen teams pitched their ideas to a judging panel, and the finalists were chosen to progress to the Startup Stars programme.

"UCD Startup Stars combines the expertise of the Innovation Academy with that of NovaUCD to provide UCD students, who have an appetite for entrepreneurial thinking and creative problem solving, the opportunity to work beyond the confines of their subject areas and develop new solutions to problems they care about," said Prof Suzi Jarvis, founding director of UCD Innovation Academy. "Through this programme we are drawing together some of UCD's most creative undergraduates who have the courage to attempt to solve difficult problems."

The final workshop will be held in mid-June, and the teams will compete for a prize of €3,000.