Nearly 100 ELTE students have completed the first semester of the Hungarian Startup University Program first semester, and in the spring semester, scholarship holders will work in teams to further develop the best ideas. In the series of interviews with the winning idea owners, Karina Osipova, a student at the Faculty of Informatics, presents her project concept.

@ Tell us about the idea—why is it unique?

With every bill-splitting app on the market, you enter everything by hand. FairLens is the first to read the receipt for you, item by item, and let you assign each one individually. No equal splits disguised as fairness. That, combined with native HUF support, makes it purpose-built for a market everyone else ignores.

@ What skills are present in the team, and how does working together look?

As the originator, I lead product development and technical implementation. Elene drives marketing and strategy, and Gergő keeps the financials grounded. We split ownership cleanly by domain and sync regularly to keep everything aligned. Small team, no overlap, no bottlenecks.

@ Who is the primary target audience for the service?

University students and young expats living in shared households, or anyone splitting a grocery bill with people who didn't buy the same things.

@ What is the biggest challenge in implementing the project? What are your future plans?

The biggest technical challenge was getting OCR technology to reliably work with real-life, often hard-to-read Hungarian receipts. Next steps include launching the beta version, university onboarding, introducing a premium tier rollout, and expanding in Central and Eastern Europe.

@ Who helps the team during implementation?

I would like to highlight Roland Kovács’ contribution to our team as a mentor. His feedback and guidance during the process were crucial and extremely impactful. He was always there to put us on the right track, motivate and charge for the upcoming week until we meet again. I also appreciated a few meetings I had with Anna Boldog. She was really sweet and supportive, which actually eased the stress caused by challenges.

@ Why would you recommend the Hungarian Startup University Program for next year?

In less than one semester, I gained information about entrepreneurship equivalent to an entire degree program. It was surely enough to validate an idea, wrap it up properly and bring it to life. HSUP gives you all you need to actually build it, while surrounding you with people doing the same thing.

The team members

Originator: Karina Osipova (ELTE Faculty of Informatics, Computer Science)

Team members: Elene Samsiani (ELTE Faculty of Informatics, Computer Science) and Gergő Fitos (ELTE Faculty of Economics, Economics and Management)