Following the Capacity Building Programme and the Business Support Programme in spring and summer 2021, CLIB and CTA - Technological Corporation of Andalusia organised two virtual networking and training events for both clusters and SME on a European level
On 14 and 15 September SMEs from Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland were invited to attend the networking and training event. After a short and intense workshop on the Lean Canvas Business Model presented by Martin Bellof and Stefan Weber from chemstars.NRW, the SMEs had the chance to work on their pitching abilities and received feedback from experienced mentors and experts to prepare them for the pitching competition the next day.
On the second day the SMEs pitched in a competition and were evaluated by an international board of investors. Two teams were chosen as winners of the competition and are invited to visit the TechTour Food and Bioeconomy 2021 end of October in Aarhus, Denmark. Milkywaste, a company to be founded in Austria producing biodegradable and even edible plastic from casein, took the first place. Phytowelt Green Technology, an SME from Germany, is producing flavours and active ingredients in bacteria and plants and won the second place of the competition. EEDEN, also a German company, won the third place with their chemical recycling technology for cotton textiles.
CLIB would like to thank the mentors and experts María Nieto Fajardo (CTA), Nils Schrader (BIO.NRW) Matthias Slatner (acib), and Ann-Kathrin Wagner (Plan.B, BioCampus Straubing), as well as the investor jury members Marie Asano (European Circular Bioeconomy Fund, ECBF), Tom Horsey (Ionic Fund), Christian Laurer (tecnet equity NÖ Technologiebeteiligungs-Invest GmbH), and Nikolaus Raupp (High-Tech Gründerfonds, HTGF) and all SME for the very successful event.
One week later, on 22 September, the associated clusters of the respective countries also met for a networking and training event. The cluster representatives used the chance to network with each other and feedback the project’s webinar programmes. Afterwards, Katrin Kriebs, CLIB team member and experienced soft-skill trainer, guided the participants through an interactive Design Thinking workshop in which the clusters developed new ideas for services targeted towards their SME members.
We are now looking forward to the final event in Aarhus end of October and to the second iteration of the programmes in 2022.
