On March 27th and 28th, partners and stakeholders from Lithuania (Kaunas Science and Technology Park) and Italy (Metropolitan City of Turin) arrived at AD Normandie in order to take part in the staff exchange, to exchange experiences between partners with a focus on the accelerator FFWD Normandie.
WEDNESDAY 27th MARCH 2019
The first presentation of the day was made by Marc Wojtowicz and Aparajita Sen, from the INVEST department, who introduced the regional context of Normandy. Their presentation showed how Normandy can be considered as a gateway to Europe, with its closeness to both Paris and London and the many available means of transportation.
Then, the Xport Accelerator was presented by its manager, Guillaume Tricot. Xport Accelerator has been indentified as a goodp ractice within the project and many partners - as well as Interreg Europe thematic experts - have shown interest in the Xport Accelerator.
The next meeting was at the regional Incubator, partners were invited to attend two presentations at Normandie Incubation, the forst one, from Laurent Protin, the Director of Normandie Incubation was focused on the fonctionning of the incubator, the selection procedure and the incubation progamme offered to the selected start-ups....This incubator aims to host startups in their early stages of development by offering offices, workshops and tailor-made assistance to help them access a wide network of entrepreneurs, consultants and experts in Normandy. At this occasion, a visit of the premices, allong with meetings with the "Incubees" was organised for the partners and stakeholders.
Then, the MoHo - the first collider in Europe - was introduced to the participants by Nicolas Geray, one of the co-founders. MoHo is a place where researchers, startups and well-established companies can share a space of coworking in order to meet each other, exchange good practices, skills and build their network.
The afternoon session took place at “Village by CA”, another incubator located near AD Normandie. Rose-Marie Tostivint and Laure Leclercq introduced “FFWD Normandie” to the partners. It is the accelerator programme of AD Normandie. They presented the origins of the accelerator and how it has evolved from one season of acceleration to another. Rose-Marie also explained the selection procedure for the accelerated companies, the acceleration program per say and the follow-up after the companies have been accelerated. A representative of an accelerated startup (“Les Récupérables”) told the partners about his experience in the program.
THURSDAY 28th MARCH 2019
The last workshop of the staff exchange was the presentation and discussion with Anthony Arsac from “Normandie Participations”, the regional investment fund dedicated to startups and SME’s located in Normandy. This presentation was related to the good practices "Norman funding entities". The Lithuanian partners discussed the specifics of the actions of the investment funds in details and were very interested in how this fund can help Lithuanian companies to settle in Normandy, and how they could replicate such a fund in Lithuania.
AD Normandie was really pleased to host this staff exchange and to welcome partners from Italy and Lithuania. The discussions were very fruitful and follow-up will be ensured with the partners.
