Bilbao, November 28th
The 28th was dedicated to the Agrifood S3 Platform.
The opening was on the Agrifood public Innovation Center of the Basque Government, that describes a virtuous process in which all parts of the ecosystem contributes to the objective. The morning sessions continued with the description of the Method for the developing of platforms: Learn, Scoping, Mapping, Business model and Scale Up phases have been carefully outlined. Then the audience formed different groups, moved in different rooms and started brainstorming together on the challenges that emerge in the different phases of the method.
We were appointed to the Business Model Table, along with our wonderful co-leader Andalusia, as well as Cote d’Azur, Finland and Romania. It was tight, but even in a rush, something went out. On one principle the participants agreed: we need to fully communicate the successful cases we can collect while running this Agrifood-Platform, in order to trigger the imitation process we need to involve the companies. Sounds a bit convoluted? Ok, let me make it straight: we need to communicate and disseminate good practices, because companies that compete worldwide, always watch each others.
The afternoon was mild and sunny, even if the wind came no longer from the ocean, but now from the hinterland.
The technical meeting took place in Bizkaia square, a space with two children’s playground, a metaphysical Japanese garden and a mist fountain in the middle.
Fortunately the fog was left outside, as the meeting went “cut to the chase”, at the core of the action plan. The leading region (Andalusia) outlined the story so far, and the path ahead of us. A coalition of enthusiasts, as we said before, but with a clear plan written down on paper and stuck into our mind: going ahead with our action plan, gathering around the platform the consensus and the interest in our regions, going ahead with 2 business we had in store and developing other pilot projects in our working areas.
Europe is the only home we had, a home where inhabitants discuss, argue but try to find solutions and better ways to stick together.
Later that night we had a decent dinner, and hung around for a while along the river: it was a comfort thought to think that Europe is the only home we had, a home where inhabitants discuss, argue but try to find solutions and better ways to stick together.
At the airport the day after, on the way to Italy, we’ve found our Spanish terrible as usual: as the shop assistant of the duty free started smiling seeing us sweating like fountains after rushing with our burden of backpacks, rollups, hand baggage tech, we promptly reply: “Estoy caliente”…no blush on her cheek, just her head shaking… Learn Spanish…
