The Gifu University (GU) student team (from the Startup Club) won four supporters awards (MUFG^*1 Bank Award, JR Tokai Award, OKB^*2 Award, and Hakuhodo Products Award) at the "Tongali Idia Pitch Contest 2023" held on Saturday, November 11, 2023. There were a record number of 92 applications for the contest in 2023.

The "Tongali Idia Pitch Contest 2023" was designed to provide students with the opportunity to make a presentation to the public. Students eligible for the competition are undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and junior and senior high school students.

The GU student team made a presentation titled, "A matching service between university students who want to make money between classes, and companies seeking online part-timers."

The following is the message from the team members after the announcement of the awards: "We made a presentation on the project that has been commercialized in stages from this fall based on our experiences of participating in STAPS^*3 during the summer recess this year. We had the great opportunity to receive many valuable opinions from the competition judges who are rich in experiences and insights into businesses. We won the awards thanks to the great support and instructions from the companies supporting us from the early stage of our efforts, support from the GU students, and all concerned who kindly advised us from the multiple perspectives. We would like to take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation to all concerned who had guided us to win the awards. We remain committed to working hard as a member of GU Startup Club. Please continue supporting us for our endeavors."

GU pledges the continuation of support for the GU students who are aspiring to create a new business or industry in the future.

1) Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc

2) The Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank

3) STATION Ai Platform for Startups

　The following are the name of the students, years and the faculties:
　　　Ms. KITAGAWA Aiko, 1st-year student, the Faculty of Regional Studies (Startup Club)
　　　Mr. MIYAKE Ren, 1st-year student, the Faculty of Engineering (Startup Club)
　　　Ms. SAGOU Yukina, 1st-year student, the Faculty of Engineering (Startup Club)
　　　Mr. TAMAKI Junya, 3rd year student, the Faculty of Engineering (Startup Club)
　　　Ms. NAITO Chiaki, 1st-year student, the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Toyota National College of Technology (Aichi Prefecture)