ENTREPRENEDU: Closing a Chapter, Opening New Doors for Europe’s Innovators
As the ENTREPRENEDU – Enhancing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Education project comes to a close, EBAN is proud to reflect on its role in helping bring this ambitious initiative to life. For the past years, ENTREPRENEDU has been on a mission to close the innovation gap across Europe by supporting youth, startups, and researchers in turning ideas into real businesses. By bringing together partners from six countries — Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium, Germany, and Ireland — the project created a bridge between high-performing innovation hubs and regions still building their entrepreneurial capacity. From the start, EBAN’s focus was clear: connect the project’s activities to real investment networks and ensure that the entrepreneurs emerging from ENTREPRENEDU could access the knowledge, mentorship, and funding they needed to grow.
What ENTREPRENEDU Achieved
ENTREPRENEDU set out bold goals — and delivered:
- 3 Hackathons in Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria, bringing together 111 teams and surfaced nearly 100 business ideas from young innovators.
- 16 workshops which provided participants with entrepreneurial skills, from validating ideas to building business models.
- 12 selected teams received over 60 hours of tailored mentoring, with more than half strategically involving women founders.
- A comprehensive Venture Building Program was created and implemented in 3 countries, reaching 207 students — complete with a syllabus covering problem identification, solution development, market discovery, business modeling, and access to finance.
- A Venture Fellowship Program connected 102 students with accelerators and initiatives, helping them move from classroom concepts to real-world impact.
- Finally, ENTREPRENEDU produced guidelines, case studies, and a business plan to make the model highly replicable across European educational institutions.
EBAN’s Role and Perspective
As the voice of Europe’s angel investing community, EBAN’s role in ENTREPRENEDU was to connect education to investment. We brought an investor’s lens to the table — helping ensure that the project didn’t just teach entrepreneurial theory but prepared founders for real-world funding conversations and connections with angels, VCs, and accelerators.
ENTREPRENEDU also aligned perfectly with EBAN’s wider mission to level the playing field across Europe’s innovation landscape. The focus on low and moderate innovation regions like Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria is vital — because talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t.
Looking Ahead
ENTREPRENEDU may be ending as a project, but its impact will continue. The venture building syllabus, hackathon model, and fellowship network it created are designed to be reused, adapted, and scaled across Europe. For EBAN, this is just the beginning. We’ll continue working to ensure that more early-stage founders — especially from underrepresented regions and communities — have the tools, mentorship, and investment opportunities they need to thrive.
Feel free to explore the initiative and open access documentation to learn more: ENTREPRENEDU – Enhancing entrepreneurial ecosystems for education
We’re pleased to spotlight a success story that reflects the power of connection within the EBAN community. We recently sat down with long-standing EBAN friend, member, and angel investor Charles Sidman to discuss his investment in PowerUP Energy Technologies, a cutting-edge hydrogen fuel cell startup.
Charles first connected with PowerUP through EBAN in 2021, but at the time, the startup wasn’t yet ready for investment in his eyes. Their paths crossed again at the European Angel Investment Summit (EAIS) 2024—this time with a stronger value proposition and clearer growth trajectory. That second meeting, made possible through EBAN’s platform, led to a successful investment and marked the beginning of an exciting partnership.
During the interview, Charles offered fascinating insights into PowerUP’s journey, including the news that the company is now preparing to close its Series A round. He also shared his views on the proposed 28th Regime, a unified legal framework aimed at simplifying cross-border scaling for innovative companies in Europe—a topic he also spoke passionately about during the EBAN Annual Congress 2025 in Copenhagen.
This story is a perfect example of how EBAN’s ecosystem helps cultivate meaningful relationships that grow into impactful investments. Be sure to watch the full interview to hear more from Charles on PowerUP, the future of innovation policy in Europe, and the role angel investors play in shaping it.
If you have an exciting story like Charles’s, don´t hesitate to reach out to us via Elena@eban.org.
About PowerUp Energy Technologies
PowerUP is a leading innovator in the fuel cell technology market, backed by over 20 years of experience in developing sustainable energy generation solutions. The company designs and produces high-quality, hydrogen-based generators that offer a clean, reliable alternative to traditional diesel power. With a strong commitment to accelerating the hydrogen transition, PowerUP is turning the promise of hydrogen into a practical reality. Its UP® generators are designed to make energy generation both easier and cleaner—eliminating emissions, noise, and the smell of diesel while delivering dependable performance for today’s energy needs.
About Charles Sidman
Charles Sidman directs VC firm ECS Capital Partners. He is a cofounder of the American Angel Capital Association, past president of the Crowdfunding Professional Association, frequent advocate and speaker on financial, entrepreneurship, policy, and ethical issues globally, enthusiastic participant in numerous investment and professional organizations, and 2018 Special Recognition Honoree of EBAN. He supports early-stage companies through Angel investing, VC, Crowdfunding, and public markets. Dr. Sidman retired as Professor of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology from U. Cincinnati’s College of Medicine. His education includes a PhD (Immunology) from Harvard, an MBA (Management) from U. Cincinnati, and a sabbatical study (Complex Systems) at the Santa Fe Institute.
This story is a perfect example of how EBAN’s ecosystem helps cultivate meaningful relationships that grow into impactful investments. Be sure to watch the full interview to hear more from Charles on PowerUP, the future of innovation policy in Europe, and the role angel investors play in shaping it.
We are thrilled to highlight the outstanding women entrepreneurs who took the stage—and the honours—at the EXPO Capital Quest by UN Women Europe and Central Asia, held during the EBAN Congress 2025 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
This special pitching event is part of EBAN’s ongoing mission to support women-led innovation and connect promising founders with the investment community, in partnership with UN Women Europe and Central Asia under the Women’s Entrepreneurship EXPO, a unique partnership platform launched in 2021 to promote women’s entrepreneurship ecosystem building in the Europe and Central Asia region.
15 women entrepreneurs from across Europe and Central Asia—representing Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo*, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan—took the main stage to deliver 3-minute pitches to a jury of five members: Edgardo da Fonseca, Patrick Kedziora, Nina Rautiainen, Roula Bachtalia, and Iro Tsagareishvili.
From edtech solutions to virtual reality applications for anxiety and burnout relief, these founders reached the pinnacle of a programme that began with a highly competitive pool of over 1,400 applicants. Ultimately, 15 were selected to join us at the congress, culminating in one winner and two honourable mentions.
Tini Mamuchashvili, founder of Neuropilot VR from Georgia, took the top prize with her innovative virtual reality app for anxiety management. Neuropilot aims to make advanced mental health care more accessible through immersive VR experiences, helping users manage anxiety and burnout in an effective, user-friendly way.
Now, Tini is seeking to raise €300,000 in a first round and €350,000 in a second round to scale operations, refine VR modules, and achieve certifications. It’s an inspiring vision for accessible mental health care—and we encourage investors to consider supporting it.
Honourable mentions were awarded to Firouza Eshonova with EZSpeech by Mila4AI, an AI-powered platform making speech therapy more accessible and effective, and Liubov Lysenko with Biobalance LLC, which offers comprehensive, eco-friendly biological crop protection using Trichogramma.
At EBAN, we are proud to partner with UN Women on this important initiative, and deeply committed to bringing more and more women-led startups to the forefront—connecting them with the best angel investors in Europe. As we celebrate their achievements, we invite the investor community to help take these ventures to the next level. The journey doesn’t end here—these founders are ready to grow, scale, and transform industries. Let’s keep the momentum going.
