On the occasion of the International Day of Creativity and Innovation, the University of Georgia and UG Startup Factory launched a large-scale educational and entrepreneurial project, UG Innovator, and held its first meeting. The project aims to foster innovative, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial thinking among senior students of accredited public and private schools in Tbilisi and Rustavi.
UG Innovator is an eight-week program that combines learning, mentoring, competition, and a final Demo Day. The project provides students in grades X–XII with the opportunity to develop their own innovative ideas, work on real-world problems, present their solutions to a professional jury, and compete for cash prizes from a total prize fund of 10,000 GEL:
Twenty teams from schools across Tbilisi and Rustavi are participating in the project, with mentorship provided by their school teachers. The participating teams have already attended two introductory sessions, during which they were introduced to the project, received assignments, and began the learning process.
As part of the program, on May 28–29, students participated in a training session focused on the process of idea generation and development. Trainer Saba Khergiani guided participants through the key principles and essential details involved in creating and refining innovative ideas.
The students were also given a practical assignment on which team members must work collaboratively and later present at the next stage during the internal Demo Day. Based on these presentations, a special jury will select the top ten teams, from which the three winning teams will ultimately be chosen.
