Dear Readers
“The third issue of CINet's Newsletter presents the activities that took place in the third meeting of the consortium, held in Cascais (Portugal) the first two days of October 2014. It includes a testimonial about Cascais meeting by two partners, Marco Fernandes from DNA, and Joseph Hassid from UPRC; and an interview with the same two people. The issue also features a publication co-authored by Juliane Schulze from Media Deals, the dissemination of the project by Romanian media, and the launch of the definitive edition of the project’s website. Please, feel free to suggest ideas for the next issues.
We would like to wish you all the best for 2015.
Inma RODRÍGUEZ-ARDURA and Gisela AMMETLLER-MONTES”
Content
CINet Third Meeting
CINet partners met in the Portuguese town of Cascais for a two-day meeting, which took place the 1
st and 2
nd October 2014.
The kick-off included the welcome and presentation of the host partner,
DNA Cascais, and its Business Angels Club. After a coffee break, where media were invited, partners visited the Incubation Centre. There they met a number of creative entrepreneurs, who exposed the projects they were involved in. Partners got entrepreneurial inputs from
Culto da Imagem, WOA
Way of Arts,
Cascawines,
X-Cult Surfboards,
Gama Boats, and La Gloria Bikes), all of them based in the DNA’s incubation centre.
Figure 1. Culto da Imagem
Figure 2. WOA
The afternoon was dedicated to know two successful creative initiatives in the pretty coastal Portuguese town. Partners visited
Paula Rego’s Museum, and the
Cidadela Art District.
Figure 3. Cidadela Art District
Early in the morning of 2
nd October partners had a working session at DNA Cascais Auditorium. José Porfírio, project’s coordinator, presented an up-to-date overall CINet balance, and partners commented the results achieved and detailed future work.
After this first working session partners visited
ESHTE, the Hospitality and Tourism University. Apart from a general visit to the Cascais’ Campus, they also knew in first hand research projects in the field. In addition, the reputed
Master in Innovation and Culinary Arts was also presented to partners.
Figure 4. ESHTE
In the afternoon, partners resumed working sessions at the DNA Cascais Auditorium. It was the turn to present the work developed by
Transglobal on the website’s design. Then, a session was held to discuss challenges and approaches to deal with last working packages of the CINet project.
Figure 5. Presentation of new design for the CINet’s website
Marco Fernandes was the host of the third CINet meeting. His impressions about the Cascais’ Workshop are worth quoting at length:
“Being the hosts of this meeting it was a privileged moment to show Cascais Entrepreneur Ecosystem, mainly, Cascais creative entrepreneurs, DNA Incubator and also Cascais Business Angel. The partners had the opportunity to visit incubated startups in creative industries, a new space called Cidadela Art District with creative entrepreneurs, located in the centre of Cascais Vila, and visit ESHTE, Tourism and Hospitality university located in Cascais, besides all the work done related to the CINet project itself.
For us it is very important this kind of meeting, because Cascais is open to the world. From Cascais to the World, was our main theme in the recent DNA Cascais Congress and we want to bring and share new ideas and knowledge. We have strong expectations in this partnership, in order to establish bridges between partners and get a practical tool to help creative entrepreneurs to build their dreams.
Thank you for being here last October and we hope you all enjoyed.”
Joseph Hassid, director of the Greek team of UPRC, also provided a testimonial about the meeting in Cascais:
“Meeting creative entrepreneurs in Cascais, together with the briefing on the background of DNA Incubator and the overall policies of the Region, gave visiting CINet partners the opportunity to appreciate the importance of a good blend of supportive institutional environment and suitable infrastructure adapted to new creative entrepreneurs’ needs. Both these elements impact on creative entrepreneurs’ prospects for setting up viable businesses. For the type of countries to which CINet project is mainly addressed, these experiences are extremely relevant, should guide partners’ approaches and eventually determine the project’s progress and achievements.”
CINet Participants Interviewed
An interview with Marco Fernandes, Executive Director at DNA Cascais, and Joseph Hassid, Senior Researcher at the University of Piraeus Research Centre.
What is your contribution to the CINet project?
M.F.: DNA Cascais, as an Incubator and Entrepreneurship Agency, created about 8 years ago, has a deep knowledge about how to support entrepreneurs and about the main instruments to do so. Besides that, we know the Portuguese ecosystem. This away, we contribute mainly in the technical instruments to support the e-learning course, in the contacts and partnerships with other creative incubators and universities, and above all helping to find and select entrepreneurs to test the pilot platform.
J.H.: University of Piraeus (UPRC) undertook to investigate prospects for transferring, to the Greek environment, at least some of the elements of the “Nottingham Lace Market Model”. Among other tasks, it will consider, through a pilot survey, the prevailing situation concerning setting up, operation and development of creative entrepreneurs in the Athens – Piraeus area, will elaborate a number selected good practices, set up learning processes for such entrepreneurs in entrepreneurship related topics and organise dissemination activities. It is hoped that it will be possible to effectively raise awareness of creative industries’ growth prospects and stimulate interest for increased public and private investment.
Who are the people of your team and their role within the project?
M.F.: Paulo Andrez is Business Angel, DNA Cascais Member of the board and EBAN President emeritus - General adviser of the project, no specific task assigned.
Marco Fernandes, DNA Cascais Director - Coordinator of DNA participation and technical support in the areas above referred.
Pedro Lourenço, DNA Cascais Project manager - Technical support in course development and entrepreneurs procurement to the pilot.
Marta Andrada, DNA Cascais Project manager - Technical support in course development and learning materials.
J.H.: UPRC’s Team consists of Professors Vicky Pekka – Economou and Joseph Hassid. The Team also includes other University faculty members and its work is assisted by external experts. Furthermore, we have managed to secure valuable assistance from a number of business incubators and we are in contact with the Municipality of Piraeus which seems to be interested in exploring possibilities for setting up its own Business Incubators providing facilities and services to local creative entrepreneurs.
M.F.: All the process developed will give DNA and Cascais Ecosystem more knowledge about entrepreneurship, creative industries and also we will know “e-leaning method” as a tool to support entrepreneurs. But, mainly we will be co-producers of a solution to offer to entrepreneurs, already tested and ready to support Cascais creative entrepreneurs.
J.H.: While “talent” is not regarded as a scarce resource in Greece, young entrepreneurs seem to be lacking a wide range of essential complementary skills, especially business planning and management related ones. In the absence of such skills, opportunities for the sector as a whole but also for individual creative businesses’ development go unnoticed or, at least, are not exploited to any worthmentioning extent. CINet project’s contribution and, in particular, that of its Greek component, aims to redress this deficiency and contribute to further wealth creation through enhancing creative enterprises’ efficiency and wealth creation capacity. To the extent that this goes parallel with Government’s and other stakeholders’ investment in physical and institutional infrastructure, the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem will be substantially improved. The benefits, in terms of employment and competitiveness, either direct or indirect and multiplicative, are expected to be substantial!
CINet Publications and Dissemination Activities
Juliane Schulze, from Media Deals, has recently co-authored a technical note by
EBN entitled:
Creative BICs - A Practical Guide to Tailor Services to the Creative Industries. The
publication presents the trends shaping the markets of European Business Innovation Centres (BICs). It contains the characteristics and the added value of working with cultural and creative industries (CCI), recommendations for BICs to promote CCI and a guide to develop CCI good practices.
Further, at the end of November 2014 the
Jurnalul de Calarasi, the most read local newspaper of the Romanian town of Calarasi, published a
presentation of the CINet project.
In addition, at the end of last year three members of the UOC team, with the support of CINet, have published a peer-reviewed
article.
Last but not least, at mid-January 2015 the definitive
website of the CINet project has been launched. In order to implement one of the crucial goals of the project – the creation of a network among entrepreneurs in the creative industries - the site will soon include a network section, which should allow the set up and management of this network. Also, it should allow reaching one of CINet's project goals: the development of a true Creative Industries' network of entrepreneurs.
Figure 6. Home page of CINet’s website
We would like to congratulate all these colleagues for such interesting initiatives.
