InnORBIT will establish at least 20 sustainable and effective space initiatives to support 50 start-ups and scale-ups to grow and commercialise their space solutions.
The project focuses on South Eastern and Central Eastern European countries with vibrant tech ecosystems and industry verticals with great potential for contributing to the commercialisation of space.
These initiatives will be set-up and managed by innovation intermediaries (clusters, digital innovation hubs, SME associations, etc.) well-connected to their ecosystems, starting with a pivotal space technology and industry association in Romania, an intermediary managing 3 high-tech clusters in Greece and a major digital innovation hub in Croatia.
The concept of InnORBIT ensures a straightforward and effective roadmap toward this aim:
We start by mapping the ecosystems of InnORBIT’s innovation intermediaries, ROMSPACE in Romania, Corallia in Greece as well as Algebra LAB in Croatia to assess the local framework conditions, players and dynamics of these ecosystems, as well as the local actors’ perceptions and needs that may drive or hinder the development or adoption of space-enabled solutions. We finally invite stakeholders from innovation and space ecosystems across Europe to take part in the design of our services and solutions, to reinforce their demand-driven orientation and cover real market needs.
Using the information of the first stage we build InnORBIT's core programmes, services and tools:
- A Capacity Building Programme to train innovation intermediaries to build the necessary skills for effectively setting up and run space initiatives to deliver business support services to space entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups in their local innovation ecosystem.
- A Business Support Programme through which innovation intermediaries put their newfound skills into practice and deliver business support services to innovators in starting and scaling-up commercial activities to drive value from space innovation.
- A digital toolbox to facilitate the implementation of our two programmes. Some of the functionalities offered through our toolbox include but are not limited to E-learning courses, Investment Readiness Level assessment for entrepreneurs, available funding and financing opportunities, webinars and events.
We test our solutions through a 2-round pilot scheme to fine-tune and optimise their offered value.
- In the 1st round we work with InnORBIT’s innovation intermediaries in Croatia, Greece and Romania to “train the trainers” and support them to scout, screen and select promising start-ups and scale-ups to participate in the local space initiatives they set up in their regions. Well-trained experts will assess their needs and customise our offered services to catalyse their growth.
- In the 2nd round, we train and engage additional innovation intermediaries in South Eastern Europe and Central Eastern Europe to generate their own local space initiatives, openly demonstrating and proving the replication potential of our solutions.
Finally, we will gather our solutions, business models and lessons learnt into a replication guide, for other innovation intermediaries to implement, and we design a policy guide with recommendations to develop more enabling environments for space innovation as well as innovative financial support frames.
