The 1st of April marked the end of contest to participate in the international program Network Globally, Act Locally which takes place in June 2016. Six students representing three teams were selected from University of Tartu and they will participate in the intensive hands-on business development program.

All six entrepreneurial students belong to teams and have already a product or a service that they are going to develop into growth phase together with student teams from USA.

UT IdeaLab selected the following participants: Andriy Bondarenko and Mykyta Gorskykh, BBA students, who wish to build a platform for students to start their careers, called Hire Young http://hireyoung.com/. Joonas Põder, a law student, and Karl-Sander Erss, a genetic engineering student are creating a web platform&app KONKU, for tenants searching for real estate without broker fees. Kert Pjatkin and Tanel Joosep, who are both students of computer science, represent the third team Need2Park http://www.need2park.com/, parking lot management software and hardware.

Network Globally, Act Locally (NGAL 2016) brings together students from three universities, University of Tartu, College of Charleston and Nebraska Wesleyan University, to develop and perfect their business ideas, get guidance from mentors, explore their business potential and pitch for early stage investment. The NGAL project is funded by Harry&Reba Huge Foundation.

NGAL 2016 will take place from the 6th of June until the 15th of June. It will begin with a start-up camp in UT Idea Lab. Next, the students will travel to the United States of America and stay at the follow-up camp at the Nebraska Wesleyan University. The final pitch day is June 24^th. The students will arrive back to Estonia on June 26th. They will have time to work on their projects for the rest of the summer and receive mentorship and assistance from Tartu Science Park

The first Network Globally, Act Locally took place in spring 2015. In March, all selected students from three universities came together in UT Idea Lab and created six teams. The teams chose a social problem to focus on and started coming up with creative solutions. From March until May, the teams worked online with guidance from mentors. In June, the teams got together in College of Charleston and presented their work to judges representing local business community.