ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster and STARTUP3 Accelerator consortium virtually organized the Ecosystem Discovery Mission event in Slovenia on the November 12th, 2020. The webinar was divided into two parts, with a multi-stakeholder approach being formalized within the event, where we have the presence of SMEs, business support organisations, Universities, industry, and also public organisations.

The main objective was to allow participants to understand and “feel” the hosting ecosystem, learn about the processes to boost innovation in Slovenia, find out about the available resources and capacity to support the growth of SMEs’.

The first part was dedicated to take a deep look at the startup ecosystem in Slovenia, where some key players, who are coming from different support environments (private, university, and public) presented their initiatives and view on what is the best way to support the startup community. This included also presentations from Investor 1337 Works, which is included into the corporate pool of the project, and presentation from ArrowFast Medical Device Engineering, which is part of the big industry player in MedTech, Cosylab.

The second part of the webinar was dedicated to startup acceleration and pitching. Experts George Megas and Ornella Solari spoke about different opportunities for startups (financing and others) and coach them on how to properly sell their stories to the investors. The webinar was concluded by a pitching session, where 10 startups show their skills in pitching, while participants voted the best one. This small competition has been won by startup Fauna Smart Technologies, who was given a 5-day pass to the Hello Tomorrow Sumit and dedicated mentorship from ITC.

The pitching session was an introduction to the event organized by ITC on the 24^th of November 2020, where participants from Farm2Fork Hackathon will pitch to win awards. Anyone interested can still register and join the event.