A milestone event of SMART4ALL project was successfully held on February 27th, 2023 in Podgorica (Montenegro), at UpBeat Hub, by MECOnet. The 2nd Joint Workshop with other DIHs & SAE Initiatives, which was offered for both on-site and online participation, brought together SMART4ALL partners with representatives of initiatives that, among else, foster DIHs, enhance entrepreneurial spirit across Europe and support the development of start-up innovative solutions.
Over 50 attendees (students, representatives of start-ups, NGOs, academics and commercial entities) were attracted to the workshop which had an agenda full of interesting presentations in English and local language. More specifically, the workshop opened with the presentation, by prof. Radovan Stojanovic, of a wearable healthcare device to track Covid-19 symptoms, called SYNTROFOS, that was developed by MECOnet and ProSmart industrial SME. The floor was afterwards given to the members of the Montenegrin Association for New Technologies (MANT), Dr. Dimitry Tarasov and Mr. Jovan Djurkovic who gave guest lectures on prototype development.
Assistant professor Boris Antic from the Faculty of Technical Sciences University of Novi Sad (FTN) presented the SMART4ALL project and Marketplace, as well as the DIH and SAE Initiatives in a speech titled “Beyond the SAE Initiative, European Digital Innovation Hubs and SMART4ALL Marketplace”. After this talk, invited speakers from:
- DIH4CPS, Mr. José Ferreira – project manager of DIH4CPS and research fellow in UNINOVA (Portugal), and
- the Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (iED), Mrs. Elissavet Pavlitsa – products services & networking director
presented opportunities and success stories from their innovation hubs. More precisely, Mr. Ferreira provided information about the DIH4CPS activities and the Ei2Network, an one-stop-shop for cross sector collaboration between SMEs, DIHs and Tech providers, while Mrs. Pavlitsa elaborated on the story of JOIST Innovation Park in Greece as a use case on the entrepreneurial path towards building an advanced innovation hub.
Funding opportunities for SMEs and DIHs were presented by SMART4ALL partners from FundingBox, Antonio Montalvo, Maria Karpilowska, Maria Roca and Anca Marin. In the following session, Francesco Mollinari (EconCult, University of Valencia) and Igor Milosevic (UpBeat Hub, AD Zid) presented the concept of developing LivingLabs, with specific focus on Southeast Europe and transferring successful experience from Western Europe. The final session was devoted to legal matters – Dr. Nina Radulović (Bar Association, Montenegro) elaborated on legal aspects of innovation and products, while Mr. Matija Stojanović (MECOnet) focused on legal protection of innovation and product realization.
