STARTUPSUMMIT2019 - STUTTGART

A few startups which took part in the Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian and Romanian pilot programmes of the project attended in Stuttgart, at the StartupSummit 2019, 1st February 2019. The event run with approx. 4,000 participants, 350 start-ups, 200 network partners from consulting, promotion and technology transfer as well as 400 B2B partners from large and medium-sized enterprises, VCs, business angels and many more. 

Start-ups and players from the Danube region offered a free presentation area (free exhibition space - including specified furniture and branding (set-up based on 2017) at the event under the umbrella of "Start-up Ecosystem Danube Countries" and thus access to the start-up ecosystem of Baden-Württemberg, partners, reference customers and investors.

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One of the main communication outputs of the project to make a movie about the summary of the experiences during the implementation. On the link below you can find a short video about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5WnCHdNweI&t=121s 

	9TH WORKING GROUP & 5TH STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING IN BANJA LUKA

At 5-7th March 2019, the partnership held its 9th Working Group & 5th Steering Committee meeting in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina / Republic of Srpska.

The scheduling of the meeting was as follows: Joint monitoring and evaluation of pilots and improvement of Output 3.3 Joint guide to develop acceleration programmes, moderated by ASIMCOV. The partnership looked through the tasks and the results of WP5 activities (Progress in organisation of local public stakeholder forums, signing cooperation agreements with finance organisations, signing a cooperation agreement for transnational innovation network, preparation of business plan and action plan for acceleration programme ) moderated by Republic Agency for the Development of SMEs of Republic of Srpska. The expert of the lead partner also holds a presentation about project management activities, upcoming tasks, reporting activities and the financial part of the project. The representative of WP2 also hosted a presentation about communication activities. 

	DEXIC ACCELERATOR 2019

The 2nd batch of DEXIC Accelerator had a surprising start. After the promotional campaign, DEX Innovation Centre collected 140 applications from digital startups with impactful innovation across Europe, Asia and even Africa.

The 6-week acceleration programme started on 1st April 2019 in the city of Liberec, Czech Republic. Each day were the startups intensively working with mentors on one of 4 core areas – Product, Business Model, Negotiation with Investors, and above all, Marketing & Sales. Moreover, two social events full of teambuilding activities took place in the beginning and in the middle of the programme in order to get familiar with other teams and relax a bit.

Common work of mentors, startups and DEX IC team has resulted in #DEMODAY that took place in Prague. The event hosted more than 90 participants – investors, mentors from the programme, startups and other startup ecosystem actors.

After careful evaluation of each presenting startup, the first place was awarded to InoCure. They developed a biomimicking 3D cell culture membrane with fibrous morphology that significantly shortens the required time for new drug development, supports animal-free life science research and saves tons of money. The 2nd place went to LOKCHECK (project management and automation tool for construction projects) and 3rd place belongs to Regnos with their product QuickTwin (online company overview, management and help with business process automation)

	The serbian pilot

Development agency of Serbia is probably the first institution in Serbia that implemented acceleration program. The focus of the pilot was on the IT and creative industries. By having in mind that a pilot project was not feasible to include the whole area of the country in the implementation process, it focused on one region-Vojvodina, the northern part of Serbia, which already has built a good ICT infrastructure. Pilot comprised a lot of activities and various opportunities for the participating start-ups: meetups, high-quality training and mentorship, Hell weeks, Startup Weekend, Growth Hackathon, demo days and pitching events. Some well-developed companies, former members of the start-up community, recognised the effort and meaning of this process, and allocated money for the best participating teams, and by that contributed to the success of the pilot. Development agency of Serbia believes that accomplished acceleration pilot sets a good example of a great way to help start-up scene, and it will serve as a good model for other organisations with the intentions to boost the domestic economy. 

	2ND BROCHURE OF THE PROJECT

The 2nd brochure of the project, which includes basic project information, the results of the project and common recommendations from the Partnership is available here:

http://www.kdriu.hu/files/KDRIU_Accelerator_brosura_2019_HUN.pdf 

	10TH WORKING GROUP & 6TH STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING IN BUDAPEST

At 28th May 2019, the partnership held its 10th and last Working Group & 6th Steering Committee meeting in Budapest, Hungary. The scheduling of the meeting was as follows: Joint monitoring and evaluation of pilots and improvement of Output 3.3 Joint guide to develop acceleration programmes, moderated by ASIMCOV. The partnership looked through the final tasks and the results of WP5 activities moderated by Republic Agency for the Development of SMEs of Republic of Srpska. The expert of the lead partner also holds a presentation about project management activities, final tasks, reporting activities and the financial part of the project. The representative of WP2 also hosted a presentation about the final communication activities. 

	Final dissemination event of the project in budapest

The Partnership held the final event of the project – which was organized by the Central-Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency –, with more than 130 participants on 28-29th May. On the first day, the parts of the program focused more on the startups' point of view. During the panel discussions, the presenters talked about different startup mistakes during the pitch and investor negotiations, what comes after an investment, how founders see mistakes and failures, and the participants got to know a story of a successful exit of a Hungarian startup, BalaBit.

The program of the second day took two sessions. The morning session gave the floor to the Accelerator project with a roundtable of startups and mentors from Accelerator pilots, the perspective of policymakers and strategic stakeholders on future funding opportunities and a presentation of a joint strategy and joint recommendations. The afternoon session – which was also the Hungarian Business Angel Network Association Angel Investment Day 2019 – began the keynote presentation of Mr Peter Cowley, president of the European Business Angel Network, which was followed by chat with Mr Péter Balogh, than a panel discussion involving representatives from Germany, the country with the largest European market from a startup business development point of view. At the end of the event, within the frame of HUNBAN pitch night 5 startups pitched for the participants: Sineko from Hungary/Austria (AI supported, structured, radiology and teleradiology reporting), The Photon from Hungary (Online platform to connect businesses with professional photographers and videographers), Regnos from Czech Republic (Digital Twin of an organisation: Provides solution for large companies in process improvements, automation), Chameleon from Hungary (Provides brand-independent wired solutions for building smart homes), and Morpho Pix from Hungary (Aims to give solution for industrial usage of Virtual Reality)

	SHORT VIDEO ABOUT THE results OF THE ACCELERATOR PROJECT

Another communication outputs of the project to make a movie about the summary of the main results. On the link below you can find a short video about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etJLBEbfY-8