InnORBIT’s 1st Info Day was successfully organized on March 10th. The first 6 Eastern European innovation intermediaries responding to our 2nd Pilot Open Call had the chance to get to know the project better as well as its Capacity Building, Business Support Programmes and the local Space Initiatives. Participants posed their questions to the InnORBIT team before making a decision to move a step forward towards participating in our pilot.
Iasmina Cioroianu, from Startup Europe Networks, opened the session with a welcome to innovation intermediary representatives and outlined the objective of this info day. Then, all participants and the InnORBIT team had the chance to introduce themselves and their organisations in a brief tour-de-table session.
Thomas Tanghe, from SpaceTec Partners, shortly introduced InnORBIT and the value it offers for space innovation in Eastern European countries, before moving on to present InnORBIT’s findings on the recent status of the commercial space sector and entrepreneurship in the region.
Emilio Crespo and Thomas Tanghe, from SpaceTec Partners, provided details on the innerworkings of the InnORBIT Capacity Building Programme, local Space Initiatives and Business Support Programme. At this point, our experts highlighted the flexibility and potential of our pilot design to be adjusted to the specific needs of each innovation intermediary, while reflecting the maturity and character of each local space ecosystem of entrepreneurs and start-ups. Frequent one-to-one advisory and support sessions with the project experts, will facilitate innovation intermediaries’ teams to better integrate the InnORBIT’s most powerful local space initiatives in their day-to-day activities.
Krisztina Toth, from Startup Europe Networks, described the design and processes of the pilot, the rough timeline and expected commitment of innovation intermediaries to InnORBIT and vice versa. The key point of this session was that innovation intermediaries retain complete control over the planning of their initiatives and the resources committed to this effort, while being supported by InnORBIT’s experts. Krisztina, finally, outlined the immediate and longer-term next steps for innovation intermediaries following the info day.
Each organization was then given the floor to express their questions about the pilot activities and several issues for discussion were raised. The key message conveyed across during the Q&A session is that InnORBIT’s space initiatives and training / business support programmes can be organized both as standalone initiatives but could also perfectly complement the core business activities innovation intermediaries undertake.
Krisztina Toth closed the session with a warm “thank you” note to all participants.
