Category: News

Technology & Business Cooperation Days 2021

Technology & Business Cooperation Days is an international trade fair that focuses on Industry 4.0. and Smart Factories and that will be held virtually from April 12 to 15, 2021.

The real Enterprise Europe Network brokerage event during Hannover Messe 2021 “Technology & Business Cooperation Days” is planned to be organised as a “virtual brokerage event” again. The HANNOVER MESSE 2021 itself will also take place as an online event, due to COVID-19.

This means that all bilateral meetings organised within the framework of the brokerage event will be held as online meetings/video-conferences via the event’s website. We will schedule meeting slots in April (12/4 –15/4). You do not need any additional software, only an up-to-date web browser, a microphone, and a webcam.

This event is organised by the local Enterprise Europe Network partner (NBank Hannover) and many other network partners ensuring a strong participation of German, European and international participants.

With the “Technology & Business Cooperation Days 2021” Enterprise Europe Network Niedersachsen will continue the great success of the 2020 virtual edition with nearly participants from 63 countries (229 from Germany), the support of more than 150 network partners and 10 other partners (e.g. NCP Energy, NCP Production, industrial and automotive cluster organisations,…).

The brokerage event offers SMEs and research organisations the opportunity to find and meet partners for commercial agreements and for research & technology cooperation in the above-mentioned fields.

Focus

  • Industry 4.0 and Smart Factory solutions
  • Resource and energy efficient manufacturing technologies
  • Sustainable Energy & Mobility
  • Measurement Tools

The registration for the “virtual/online” Technology & Business Cooperation Days is free of costs. Pending meeting requests can be confirmed or declined until 5th April 2021.

Take your chance to innovate! Gain new opportunities and competitive advantages through R&D and technological as well as business co-operations.

Why participate

  • Showcase your most favorable projects, products or know-how
  • Targeting potential business partners in pre-scheduled face-to-face meetings
  • Initiate cross-border contacts and co-operations
  • Find new commercial/technological/research partners
  • Get the latest information on industrial related research results
  • Meet and share views with researchers and experts
  • Easy access to enterprises and scientists in the thematic focus.
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STARTUP3 Top 5 Winners: Take a Look at the Best Deep-tech Innovators!

The STARTUP3 Project announces the Top 5 Innovators! Teams from all over Europe will continue working hard on the next great deep-tech startup. Within the next three months, they will accelerate their market presence together with the Corporate Pool members and dedicated mentors from the programme!

At the end of March, 10 startups of the STARTUP3 Accelerator Programme presented their pitches to show the international jury the result of their hard work and progress throughout the last 6 months of the programme. Concretely, they have shown their business and financial plans which provided additional basis for the jury’s assessment.

The jury was composed of a very diverse mix of professionals from the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem with many years of experience under their belt in the roles of founders, entrepreneurs, coaches, investors as well as business developers in local and global ecosystems..

After the assessments on the Founder Studio Platform, and having in mind the above criteria such as business readiness but also organisational and innovation capacity, the jury selected 5 teams as the winners of the STARTUP3 Accelerator Programme. From Agritech, Healthech, Retail, Consumer Relations to XR, AI and Earth Observation – the 5 winning teams are living examples of how digital innovations are supporting communities to make each sphere of life easier.

The 5 winning startups and their bright ideas which you will probably hear of in the future are:

More about 3rd phase – PRODUCT2MARKET

STARTUP3 is a mentorship-driven accelerator programme. Phase 3 focuses on customer access, strategic alliances between startups/ SMEs & corporates, and rapid internationalization. With this in mind, support activities will revolve around bid mentoring, improving interpersonal skills for dealing with clients, VCs and CVCs, pitching in front of accelerators and investors.


The STARTUP3 Networking & Collision Days will be organized where each startup/ SME that took part in the Product 2 Market phase will present their innovative solutions and business models to the crowd of investors, STARTUP3 Corporate Pool, and the general public. 


The combination of all these activities will help our startups/ SMEs validate their business model, connect to the market and investors/ partners.

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Launch of the new European Innovation Council

The European Innovation Council (EIC) is a key novelty of Horizon Europe and represents the most ambitious innovation initiative that Europe has taken, with a budget of €10 billion for the period 2021-2027. The first calls for applicants are planned to be released on 18 March – a two-day launch event will be organised to provide information about the vision of the EIC and what is behind its funding opportunities.

The launch of the new European Innovation Council will take place over two days on 18 and 19 March. The EIC has a mission to identify, develop and scale-up breakthrough technologies and disruptive innovations. The EIC will support startups, SMEs and research teams developing high-risk, high-impact breakthrough innovation, with a particular focus on scaling up game-changing solutions that contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal and the Recovery Plan for Europe.

Launch ceremony

18 March (9.30 – 11.30 CET)

Statements from Heads of States and EU institutions

Short specific sessions on the contribution of the EIC to Europe’s economic recovery:

  • EIC for building businesses from breakthrough science
    Speakers: Ingmar Hoerr (Founder and former CEO of CureVac), Louis de Lillers (CEO CorWave) + other to be confirmed
    Moderator: Chris Sisserian (Sifted)
  • EIC for investing in deep tech
    Speakers: Hermann Hauser (Amadeus Capital) + other to be confirmed
    Moderator: Robin Wauters (Tech.EU)
  • EIC for creating innovation ecosystems for sustainability
    Speakers: Jim Snabe (Chair, Siemens) and Roxanne Varza (CEO, Station F)
    Moderator: Jean-Eric Paquet (Director-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission)

Applicants’ day

19 March (9.30 – 16.30 CET)

For potential beneficiaries and stakeholders, the applicant day will provide concrete information on how the EIC works, how to apply, who is eligible, etc.

Sessions will include information on funding opportunities for research teams, startups, SMEs and investors.

Source: European Commission – Research and Innovation (https://bit.ly/308cuuY)

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STARTUP3 Pitch Stop #2 – Top 5 Winners

European deep-tech start-ups demonstrate the best opportunities for scaling up. And, according to the recent State of European Tech report, Europe’s tech industry is growing five times faster than the rest of the European economy in terms of gross value added, a level that has accelerated in recent years.

After a pretty successful Phase 2 of the STARTUP3 Acceleration Programme, the time has come for Pitch Stop #2 where the best 5 solutions will be selected!

In this second phase of the Acceleration programme, each startup has had different goals and expectations, and therefore their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were specifically identified based on their solution, needs, and plans at the beginning of the programme. All teams were guided by experienced lead mentors who helped them with a variety of technical and business questions. Additionally, a series of Expert Sessions provided the teams with specific know-how, such as Startup Benchmark and Competition Radar, MVP Strategy, Fundraising Strategy and Digital Marketing.

Now it’s time to select the best 5 startups who will start a collaboration with the matched Corporates or Investors! The second Pitch Stop will be held on the 23rd and 24th of March, 2021.

On the first day, the STARTUP3 Beneficiaries from Health-tech, Cybersecurity and Customer Relationship Management will pitch their presentations, while the second day will be dedicated to the Agritech and Smart Infrastructure field!

The event will start at 14:00 CET on 23rd and at 10:00 CET the next day, while the announcement of the TOP 5 Winners will be held from 14:30 to 15:30 CET on the 24th!

Europe’s Deep Tech companies are worth a combined €700 billion today. Many have their roots in academia and drew early support from government grants. Yet there’s a lot more potential to be unlocked. Europe’s universities and research really are world-class. The commercial gap with China and the US can be closed by fostering an entrepreneurial culture on campuses, training first-time academic entrepreneurs and tech transfer officers, and offering spinouts simpler and faster deals. (Source: Dealroom)

We invite you to join the STARTUP3 Pitch Stop Event and discover the potential for fruitful collaboration with Europe’s top-notch deep-tech innovators! In case you’d like to assist with the event, kindly send an email to acharemis@ekt.gr.

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Throwback: STARTUP3 Innovation Pitch Challenge in Latvia

The online event “STARTUP3 Innovation Pitch Challenge” in Latvia on February 25th was one of the project activities, that invited startups to meetup and in an interactive way figure out the best practices of what makes the online pitch-perfect.

The aims of the event:

  1. Share professional points of view to help startups understand how to create and present pitches;
  2. To share experience stories and the knowledge between speakers and participants;
  3. Give the opportunity for startups to share their pitches and get professional feedback on them.

The online event consisted of two parts: Presentations “Pitching in the online world: does and don’ts” shared by pitching professionals Ernests Stals and Gleb Maltsev, and Pitch Battle where startups from the STARTUP3 project and Vidzeme region competed for the title of the best pitch.

 

Opening with Joseph Campbell quote “People forget facts, but they remember stories” Ernests Štāls from Superhero Capital emphasized on the purpose and structure of great pitch.

Ernests Štāls

Pitching Professional
“The more you know, the more you want to tell, but the pitch is a short story with an aim to persuade people to continue the conversation. Always have answer to the question “What’s in it for me” – and the audience should have answer to the same question as well when listening to your pitch. Investors are looking for the essence – show real you, show deeper ambitions!”

Gleb Maltsev, pitch coach with more than 10 years of experience in the field, gave practical suggestions and involved event participants in short tasks to highlight how the theory should work in real life when it comes to pitching.

Gleb Maltsev

Pitching Professional
“The key to success in pitching is to have guts to share who you really are. And most importantly, your story should make sense!”

The first part of the event gave all the participants a great look into how to prepare not only a good pitch but also how to prepare yourself before public speaking and some more tips on how to act and manage your voice and stress level.

After presentations and a Q&A session a Pitch Battle was held, where five startups pitched their ideas, and after received professional feedback from the main speakers, as well online voting took place and startup Fauna Smart Technologies won the challenge and opportunity to attend the upcoming TechChill conference.

The event was part of project STARTUP3, Vidzeme Innovation Week, and EU Industry Week. It was a great success, reaching approximately 60 participants from different countries and providing useful information, tips and tricks, based on experience, that will potentially help many of the startups to do better in their next pitching.

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X-Europe – Smart Cities and Sustainability Open Call

Smart Cities and Sustainability innovators, apply now
to X-Europe!

The X-Europe programme offers training, matchmaking, and promotion opportunities to deeptech startups and unites the network and services of F6S, TNW, Design Terminal, Growth Tribe, and TechChill.

Under the umbrella of the Startup Europe initiative, the EU-funded programme X-Europe aims to foster the growth of leading European deeptech startups by providing top-notch training and mentoring services and guiding partnerships with investors, corporations, and ecosystem builders. The programme is designed and run by five leaders in the startup community: F6S, TNW, Design Terminal, Growth Tribe, and TechChill.

 

X-Europe has entered its second year, with three cohorts in its pipeline: HealthTech, AgriTech and Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, and now, we are super excited to launch the fourth open call for European startups and scaleups, this time in the Smart Cities and Sustainability domains. The open call is seeking 25 startups to join X-Europe’s Cohort 4, which will take place from May to October 2021. Selected startups will benefit from the programme’s matchmaking, training, and promotional value. Additionally, X-Europe seeks to connect ecosystems across Europe and allow opportunities, companies, and capital to flow freely across the continent.

 

The programme has been successful, providing growth and a plethora of matchmaking opportunities to 80 cutting-edge deeptech startups. TNW Event has been a pinnacle of the affairs where our startups have digitally mingled among the global business elite, showing a keen eye for developing and commercialising innovative solutions and shining with their flying colours. Design Terminal’s Future of AgriTech Online Summit has shined its light to the AgriTech cohort, providing yet another opportunity for digital knowledge sharing and networking.

 

All services of the X-Europe programme are provided free of charge thanks to Startup Europe.

The programme is optimised for a complete digital experience without physical attendance to safeguard participants’ safety during the pandemic. A few optional activities may take place locally.

 

The open call winners will get:
● Free entry and showcasing at TNW Conference in Sept 30 & Oct 1 2021;
● Matchmaking opportunities with investors;
● The possibility to build partnerships with corporations (your idea might be the right solution to their business challenges);
● Online training sessions, including market-leading courses from Growth Tribe and other workshops;
● One-on-one mentoring sessions;
● Talent matchmaking support;
● Media exposure
● The possibility of joining the Acceleration week by Design Terminal and access to TechChill’s and TNW’s community incubators.

 

For more information, please visit X-Europe on www.xeurope.eu, or follow them on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

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IoT Tribe Tech Games: a New Dawn for Space Technologies

STARTUP3 invites you to join the IoT Tribe Tech Games – European space tech panel discussion and exciting startup pitches!

About the Event

Global commercial revenues from Spacetech amount to USD 280-300 billion but the financial impact spills over into markets as diverse as agriculture, transport and the environment.

Join us on the 9th February for the Space Endeavour Tech Games to hear about some of these solutions, from space-tech enabled cybersecurity for complex supply chains to low-earth orbit picosats. STARTUP3 Beneficiary – Latitudo40 – will present their innovative solution based on real-time urban planning data!

The event will take place online 10.00am to 12.30pm (CET) / 9:00 am to 11.30 am (GMT) / 5:00 pm to 7:30 pm (SGT) followed by virtual networking.

Registered attendees: please visit our event platform – Zoom

If you would like to arrange a one to one session with any of our founders during the networking session, please contact jguerra@iottribe.org

About the Organiser

IoT Tribe is an ecosystem builder. At the heart of our activities is our equity-free acceleration programmes that provide technology startups with the opportunity to build their products, test the market and raise funds for future growth.

With offices in London, Madrid and Singapore, as well as a global network of partners, IoT Tribe is building sustainable global technology ecosystems by helping startups and corporates to work together.

IoT Tribe Space Endeavour Accelerator

The programme intends to expand the impact and adoption of European Space Tech by bringing together Space start-ups, SMEs, entrepreneurs and the IoT ecosystem to increase commercial relevance of the technologies across industrial sectors and accelerate their access to market and/or scaling.

Taking European space tech, integrated surveillance networks, data from Copernicus, satellites, and micro constellations for secure communication, computer vision from fighter pilots, and integrating into market-ready solutions across verticals.

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STARTUP3 Pitch Challenge – Latvia

Latvian IT Cluster and STARTUP3 Accelerator consortium virtually organize the Innovation Pitch Challenge in Latvia on the February 25th, 2021 from 10:00 CET!

What are the investors expecting from the pitches that are presented in the current virtual world?

The STARTUP3 Innovation Pitch Challenge invites startups to a meetup where we will talk about the best practices of what makes the online pitch-perfect. We’ll have great keynotes on the topic, presented by industry professionals, to give you the tips and tricks to help you become better. Be active! Be prepared to ask questions!

In the second part of the meetup, the attendees will have an opportunity to see a pitch battle where pre-selected startups from the STARTUP33 accelerator and Vidzeme region will fight for the title of the best pitch.

The event is part of the STARTUP3 Project, Vidzeme Innovation week, and EU Industrial week programs.

 

Registration Form

Webinar Agenda

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NGI Talk: “Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Society” by Manuela Battaglini

STARTUP3 invites you to join the NGI Talk – a webinar about the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society!

About the event

Will machines become super-intelligent and will humans eventually lose control? While there is debate around how likely this scenario will be we do know that there are always unforeseen consequences when new technology is introduced. Those unintended outcomes of artificial intelligence will likely challenge us all.

As with most changes in life, there will be positive and negative impacts on society as artificial intelligence continues to transform the world we live in. How that will balance out is anyone’s guess and up for much debate and for many people to contemplate.

Join the next NGI Talk, brought to you by the NGI community ambassador Manuela Bagliattini, and meet possible challenges that we, as a society, might be faced with, and as well as several of the positive impacts artificial intelligence will have on society.

About the speaker

Manuela Battaglini is a specialist in strategic digital marketing, a law graduate and a researcher. She works on Digital Ethics (data ethics, security ethics, algorithm ethics and ethics in practice) studying the social impact of automated decision-making processes and personal profiling. She is also CEO of Transparent Internet, a consulting firm that helps organizations make their AI systems ethical, transparent and trustworthy.

Who is NGI?

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) is a European Commission initiative that aims to shape the development and evolution of the Internet into an Internet of Humans. An Internet that responds to people’s fundamental needs, including trust, security, and inclusion, while reflecting the values and the norms all citizens enjoy in Europe.

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AI4EU – Open Call

AI4EU collect the Most Critical AI Challenges among the European Industry and provide support in addressing them with the EU funds!

 

Interested in being a part of the AI4EU Support Program?

The objective of the AI4EU Call for Challenges is to identify 13 challenges with an industrial, business or societal impact that can be solved by exploiting existing AI resources included on the AI4EU Platform or by developing new components.

CALL FOR CHALLENGES

The Challenges Open Call remains open until Q2 2021 with a cut-off date on 26th of January 2021 at 13:00 (Brussels time).                                         

Receive funding of up to € 10.000 to clearly define your challenge to be solved with AI. Enter the 6-months Support Program. In the Program, you will be working with at least 2 Solution Providers which will develop min. 2 different solutions to your challenge.

Who can apply?

The call for challenges is addressed to the following type of applicants:

  • SMEs
  • Mid-Caps
  • Large Companies
  • AI4EU Consortium Partners
    Only beneficiaries external to the consortium will be funded.

CALL FOR SOLUTIONS – Open soon!

The 1st Call for Solutions will launch 25th of February 2021 at 13:00 (Brussels time), here on the site, with a deadline on 27th April 2021 at 13:00 (Brussels time).

Receive funding of up to € 70.000 for the selected 41 Solutions Providers to collaborate with the Challenge Owner in the development of a solution to the challenge.

Who can apply?

Technology Providers being defined as:

  • Startups 
  • SMEs
  • Mid-Caps
  • Large Companies
  • Research Organizations

What activities will be supported?

Identifying, defining and addressing particular problems that can be solved using Artificial Intelligence by Solution Providers selected in the upcoming AI4EU Call for Solutions.

The results of the Support Program will be published on AI4EU Platform. The results to be published will be the solutions developed by the Solutions Providers.

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