SYDNEY, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Sydney university has taken a bold step in providing significant financial support to its current students and alumni who may want to be next Steve Jobs.
The University of Sydney has set aside 1 million Australian dollars (760,000 U.S. dollars) into a accelerator startup known as Incubate in hopes of helping its entrepreneurial students get a leg-up in commercialising their business ideas once they finish their studies.
The university in a statement on Monday said that it will provide the funding for the startup accelerator and believes it will help double the size of the funds in the next five years.
"The university has committed over one million Australian dollars (760,000 U.S. dollars) to the award-winning program, co-founded by two entrepreneurial former students in 2012 and developed by the University of Sydney Union (USU)."
"Open to University of Sydney students, researchers and alumni, Incubate, currently accepts two intakes of up to eight startups each year."
"This new funding will enable Incubate to increase its support to over 30 startups per year by 2018," the university said.
Incubate program manager James Alexander, who co-founded the program as a student, told Fairfax Media that the extra money will be provided over five years and bring more start-ups into the program as well as offer other support for students to turn their ideas into businesses.
The Incubate is currently run by a team of six students and has more than 100 industry mentors.
