A competition with awards and prizes worth over 20.000€, for startup founders from Northern Greece.
If you are working on an innovative idea, or have already taken your first steps in the market, and your team members come from Thessaloniki, Kilkis, Pella, or Florina, then this challenge is for you.
At Next Stage Challenge:
Three grand prize winners and several additional prize winners have been announced.
Check out the winnersSubmit your application in one of the following three stages
You have an innovative idea and the next stage is to validate if the market you are targeting is the right fit for your product or service
You have created an early version of your product or service and the next stage is to attract your first customers
You are already in the market and have early revenues and the next stage is to grow your business
to be able to identify the risk factors of your business model and learn how to manage them
to perform a better market analysis, map the competitive landscape, evaluate the financial opportunity, etc.
adapted to your stage of development in order to better assess and communicate your business model
with experienced entrepreneurs and market stakeholders
worth over 20.000€ to help you get to the next stage
Submissions deadline
30 applications are selected to participate in our program
Semi-finals for the selection of the finalists
Final competition and awards ceremony
Be the first to know
The 15 teams selected at the semi-finals will present their business models to a panel of venture capitalists, angel investors, and corporate actors, to claim awards and prizes worth over 20.000€.
The awards will be claimed in the form of monetary support and/or the provision of services based on the needs of the winning startups.
A wider network of supporting organizations will select some of the 15 teams to receive extra prizes.
Dimitris Kourtesis, Nikos Tsoniotis, and Stefanos Tsiakmakis are tech entrepreneurs, co-founders of Ideas Forward, and coaches at OK!Thess. They have supported more than 100 startups at different stages of their development. They are responsible for training and coaching the teams of Next Stage Challenge 2021.
Introductory courses to the training program of the competition will be conducted by experienced members of the Center for Volunteer Managers of Greece (KEMEL). KEMEL is composed of active and former senior executives of Greek and multinational companies with a strong willingness to volunteer.
Yes. Participation is open: a) to existing companies, b) to groups of co-founders or individual founders of business ventures who have not yet started a business.
The cost of organizing this year's Next Stage Challenge is covered by the iCBA program, which aims to help startup founders and businesses operating in the specific Region.
Yes. Not all team members have to be from Thessaloniki, Kilkis, Pella, or Florina, as long as one member of the founding team lives there.
Yes. A company can participate if it has a headquarters or branch in the target areas, or if a legal representative resides there permanently.
You should be ready to invest about 25 hours, over a period of 8 weeks, in order for us to work together on your project. Preparation for the 30 startups that will be accepted starts on May 15, 2021, and lasts until July 15. Every week you will be doing either a three-hour training workshop with all teams participating, or a coaching session for your team only.
Full attendance at the training program is not mandatory but we believe that in most teams it will be catalytic, in order to claim their qualification to the 15 finalists and a distinction in the finals. A minimum level of participation in coaching and training sessions is a prerequisite for participation.
The preparation of the 30 teams (15/5 - 15/7) and the semifinal will be conducted online. If the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic allow it, the final competition may take place in Thessaloniki, requiring a physical presence.
In brief:
In more detail:
1. Degree of clarity in the description of the customer need and the value proposition
In particular, for groups at different stages:
2. Complementarity and team readiness
3. Market size / economic perspective
(Common criterion for teams of all stages)
4. Degree of innovation
(Common criterion for teams of all stages)
Not necessarily. We strongly encourage participation by founders who seek to bring innovative technology to market, or seek to utilize technology to create new services and products. The key objective is business model innovation and this does not necessarily have to come in the form of new technology.
1. Website Administrator
1.1. The Private Capital Company with the name "IDEAS FORWARD PC", and the distinctive title "IDEAS FORWARD", located in the Municipality of Thessaloniki, 78 G. Papandreou Street, PC 54655, with VAT. EL801155845, which from now on and for the sake of brevity will be called "the Company".
2. Field of application
2.1. These terms of use relate exclusively to the use of the website nextstage.gr, or wherever else it is stated that they apply mutatis mutandis.
2.2. These terms are subject to change at any time without notice.
2.3. In any case, the amended terms will not apply retroactively.
2.4. These terms do not apply, unless expressly stated, to the Next Stage competition.
3. Definitions
3.1. Next Stage Challenge 2021: A young entrepreneurship competition, which is addressed to members of business teams living in Thessaloniki, Kilkis, Pella, or Florina, with the aim of training, personalized guidance, networking, and rewarding the best teams.
4. Purpose of the website
4.1. Informing the public and the candidate participants for the Next Stage Challenge 2021.
5. Personal data
5.1. Personal data protection policy
5.1.1. As reflected in the DATA PROTECTION POLICY .
5.2. By filling in personal data on this website you declare that you have the authorization of the natural person to provide them to the Company.
6. Intellectual property of the Company
6.1. The content of this website (including text, graphics, images, audio, photos, and software) is the intellectual property of the Company.
6.2. It is prohibited, in whole or in part, the republishing and generally reproduction and retransmission of the content of the website, the storage in a database, the retransmission in electronic, mechanical or any other form, in the original, in translation or other adaptation and modification of the content and its appearance, without the written permission of the Company.
6.3. The appearance of the material on this website does not constitute a transfer or grant of a license or right to use or exploit it.
7. Intellectual property of third parties
7.1. Trademarks, insignia, and designs owned by third parties remain their property and may not be used without the prior permission of their owners.
8. Social media accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn)
8.1. The Company does not adopt opinions that are expressed in comments, publications, or even in the texts that are hosted on the accounts that it maintains on social media.
8.1.1. The official accounts of the Company on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn) are presented through a hyperlink to the website.
8.2. Any trademark that may be mentioned in posts on social media pages, remains the property of its respective owner and does not imply the promotion, approval, or proposal of the Company for him.
8.3. If you wish to exercise your rights in relation to the posts on accounts held by the Company, please contact us via email or direct message on the social networking accounts.
9. Confidentiality
9.1. Please do not send confidential data (personal or business) via the contact form or through social networking accounts.
10. Jurisdiction
10.1. For any dispute arising from the application of these terms, the Courts of Thessaloniki will be competent.
11. Applicable law
11.1. Greek law will be applicable.
Personal Data Protection Officer
The Private Capital Company with the name "IDEAS FORWARD PC", and the distinctive title "IDEAS FORWARD", based in the Municipality of Thessaloniki, 78 G. Papandreou Street, 54655, with TIN. 801155845, which from now on and for the sake of brevity will be called "the Company".
Contact email for the exercise of rights deriving from this: hello@ideasforward.com
This personal data protection policy concerns only the personal data collected by the Company as a Processor through the website nextstage.gr, the contact email of info@nextstage.gr as well as through its social media pages (Facebook, LinkedIn ).
1. Rights of subjects
1.1. Right of access to the personal data concerning you and if they are processed by the Company.
1.2. Right to correct inaccurate data as well as to fill in missing data.
1.3. Right to delete personal data subject to you, subject to the obligations and legal rights of the Company.
1.4. Right to restrict the processing of personal data concerning you.
1.5. Right to withdraw your consent.
2. How to exercise rights
2.1. Any request regarding your personal data concerning you and the exercise of your relevant rights must be addressed via email to the Company.
3. Complaint
3.1. You have the right to appeal to the Personal Data Protection Authority (www.dpa.gr).
4. Personal data collected
4.1. Full name
4.2. Address
4.3. Phone
4.4. Email (in case this is identifiable personal data)
4.5. Personal data that is voluntarily registered in the contact form or in the participation form located on the Company's website, or sent to its e-mail address, the categories of which cannot be previously identified.
5. Processing of personal data of minors
5.1. The processing of personal data of a minor, when offering information society services directly to him / her, is legal if the minor has reached the age of fifteen (15) years and provides his / her consent.
5.2. If the minor is under fifteen (15) years old, the processing of the above paragraph is legal only after the consent of his legal representative.
6. Editing purposes
6.1. The claim of the Company to fulfill its corporate purposes and the sending of informative notes (newsletter).
7. Legal Basis
7.1. For the claims of the Company: The legal interest of the Company.
7.2. To send information notes: Your consent.
8. Data storage time
8.1. Up to one (1) year from the sending of the data to the Company.
9. Receivers
9.1. Employees of the Company and external collaborators (indicatively and not restrictively mentioned: Legal Advisor, Technical Support Staff, Rapporteurs, Trainers - Coaches).
9.2. No personal data is transferred to third parties for any commercial purpose not mentioned here.
10. Transmission to third countries or international organizations
10.1. No transfers are made to third countries or international organizations.
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11.1. To ensure the proper functioning of the website, we sometimes place small data files on your computer, the so-called "cookies".
11.2. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer or mobile device by the software application that you use to visit a website (such as Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari). This way, for a period of time, the application may remember your previous actions (such as the last time you visited the site and the content you then saw) and your preferences (such as content display language, font size, and other display preferences). ).
11.3. The purpose of using cookies is to personalize the experience you have when you visit the website, adapting its content and functionality, and collecting anonymous information (such as the length of stay of visitors to the website, the operating system, or the type of device used by visitors, the origin of visitors at the country or city-level) to make improvements.
11.4. At the nextstage.gr website we use cookies that are installed on your computer to allow the operation of the Google Analytics service. Google Analytics cookies are used to store and collect information in anonymous form about how visitors use a website, thus allowing the creation of a detailed report on the status of the website. The data collected includes the number of visitors, their length of stay, the source from which they come, and the pages they visited.
11.5. You can delete these cookies, or block access to them, but if you do, some features of the site may not work well.
11.6. The information related to cookies is not used to personally identify you and we have complete control over the data.
11.7. Cookies are not used for purposes other than those described herein.
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11.9. Details can be found here: aboutcookies.org.
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