Centro de Empreendedorismo da Unifei – CEU (Unifei Entrepreneurship Center) is a place created in 2012, which it is not just a physical space, but it’s a place for personal development and a movement to spread the entrepreneurship culture throughout the university and our ecosystem in Itajubá (the Itajubá Hardtech Ecosystem). Our center is made by young students and volunteers from the university who, through creative and innovative actions, encourage entrepreneurship in our community. During the journey of the members in the project, we are encouraged to be proactive, through our own culture, called “VLEF” (Vai Lá E Faz – Go There And Do It).
Every year the Centro de Empreendedorismo da Unifei engages around one thousand and five hundred people in our community, through Events, Hackathons and programs, such as: Startup Weekend, Nasa International Space Apps Challenge, TEDx, pre-accelerations, Ninja Startup Job and much more.
Our mission is to create a welcoming space for our community, from the students and researchers from the university to the external community, made by the members of our ecosystem, where the entrepreneurs and students can feel safe to test their ideas, to execute a journey full of innovation, to use their creativity and to make connections and networking.
During 8 years of pre-accelerations, more than 50 startups were created and more than 100 founders were qualified. These companies were invested with more than R$80,000,000 in early stage investments.
In 2024 CEU was elected the best innovation hub in Brazil because of the interaction that we do in our community between Startups, companies and academic institutions, and our university, Universidade Federal de Itajubá, is considered one of the best entrepreneurial Universities in Brazil.
