For a quite long time we were preparing for that meeting in Vratsa. Now, it’s already over.
As usual, these were 2 days of intensive work. Our meeting took place in 17 and 18 September, 2019 in Bulgaria.
The first day, we spent in Conference room CCI-Vratsa – Hristo Botev square – in the building of Drama and puppet theatre, near the headquarter of the Agency for regional and economic development – Vratsa (our Project Partner from Bulgaria). At the beginning we were welcomed by Ms. Iliana Philipova, the Chairperson of the Managing Board of ARED, who presented us the Vratsa region and activities of ARED. After that was organized the Steering Committee where we discussed about OSS results achieved till now and we made decisions on further actions in our project. At the same time, stakeholders from partners’ countries had meeting with local stakeholders and experts where they had a chance to present their experience and networking. After that part, our Advisory Partner presented ongoing results regarding Good Pratices in the field of mentoring.
The second day we spent in Sofia Tech Park. Sofia Tech Park is the first science and technology park in Bulgaria. It was created as a platform for the exchange of knowledge and ideas between the academic, business, government and society. It is a perfect location for international, regional and national scientists and innovative companies in Bulgaria and the Balkans countries. Main task of Sofia Tech Park is to improve the system of supporting innovation and new technologies by providing assistance to companies that contribute to the development of economy and knowledge in the country, as well as unification of business and science efforts, focusing mainly on the development and implementation of projects in the three main points of the park - ICT, natural sciences and clean energy. In the facilities of Techpark we had a chance to conduct our workshop session on the subject: Mentoring and collaboration between startups and business Good practices. During this part of the meeting, OSS project partners presented their good practices and mentoring solutions and also had the opportunity to learn about solutions and good examples of start-ups operating in Bulgaria.
The next meeting is planned for April in Spain (Granada) and will concern the governance of ecosystems for first time start-ups.
