Latvian Information Technology Cluster team is active to involve in international projects, which can give a positive impact on Latvian IT entrepreneurs. We are happy to announce that by the end of this summer, we have received an acknowledgment from the European Commission to begin two new projects under the “Horizon 2020” framework.
> STARTUP3 – support deep-tech enterprises, offering an acceleration program for several months to develop or to improve the product in order to sell more effectively.
Length: 24 months
Partners: POLE SOLUTIONS COMMUNICANTES SECURISEES (FR), INOSENS DOO NOVI SAD (RS), AGRICULTURAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS (EL), ITC - INOVACIJSKO TEHNOLOSKI GROZD MURSKA SOBOTA (SI), HOLA-UP (FR), ETHNIKO IDRYMA EREVNON (EL), LITC (LV)
It is our vision to build smart spaces ecosystem, a reef-like deep-tech hub-of-hubs that fosters deep tech startups/ SMEs to scale and capture new opportunities for funding and business expansion. As first step, STARTUP3 will scout for top founding teams to identify (uptake) breakthrough innovations from deep tech verticals (i.e. built on tangible scientific discoveries or engineering/ technical advances). Then STARTUP3 will help them fine tune (upgrade) their technologies/ business models and align their value proposition to the actual market demand (the so-called Key Performance Areas - KPAs). Finally, STARTUP3 will bring together top deep tech startups/ SMEs and the most prominent corporate innovators - CVC arms, incubators and accelerators, and innovation labs (facilitated by clusters and digital innovations hubs DIHs) with the aim of catalysing productive interaction (upscale).
> BOWI (Boosting Widening Digital Innovation Hubs) – including Latvian IT Cluster DIH into the European DIH network to create closer cooperation among Digital Innovation Hubs, therefore offering grants for digitalization improvements in Latvia.
Length: 42 months
Partners: Civitta Lithuania (LT), FundingBox Accelerator (PL), Nederlandse organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NL), Technical Research Centre of Finland (FI), Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen (RWTH) (DE), Transilvania IT Cluster (RO), Latvian IT Cluster (LV), University of West Bohemian (CZ), Krakow Technology Park (PL), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO), Cluster Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) (BG)
The core of this project is to test the mechanism that will work as a tool to establish a connection and collaboration between proto-hubs and mature hubs with an establishment of a blended finance accelerator programme. To ensure practical experience, all 15 proto-hubs will be supported to conduct 60 (15x4) SAE/I4MS uptake experiments with SMEs in total.
Information about project activities will follow!
