Networking Archives - Das STZ im Einsatz

Women in Business.

16.06.2020: online event. Juergen Raizner was invited by bwcon as speaker to the conference “Women in Business”. As part of ongoing Interreg project with same title, event was fully dedicated to discuss any aspect of promoting “Female Entrepreneurship”.

To more than 50 participants, Juergen Raizner introduced Erasmus+ funded project ifempower which is in its structure very similar to Women in Business. Online event was a great opportunity for Steinbeis to present intellectual outputs, particularly the mentorship program and to launch the newly established ifempower Support Point in front of a high quality audience.

Event benefited from large audience, most of them being women entrepreneurs who shared with the rest of participants their experiences and best practice examples towards female entrepreneurship.

Women in Business project was presented and represented at Ifempower events in Seville (09/2019) and Porto (02/2020).

Agenda of the event (presentations will be made available by bwcon):

Welcome by bwcon GmbH & presentation of the EU project “Women in Business”
Keynote: Tanja Rug (Unternehmenscoach & Trainer, Co-Founder “She Potential”): Resilience goes business
Anja Lange (Moderator & Co-Founder Innovative Women Network)
Christine Deger (Cybersecurity Expertin, Certified Ethical Hackerin & Founder “Changeboxx IT Solution”)
Samira Djidjeh (Founder & Animation Producer @ greenboxx animation & Chairwoman Digital Media Women e.V.)
Jürgen Raizner (Steinbeis Transfer Center): Ifempower project
Start-Up BW: Support for founders in Baden-Württemberg
Discussion / exchange

About “Women in Business”

The consortium of 14 project partners from 9 Danube Region countries brings together national and regional, public and private organizations and universities, whose specific thematic background guarantees a solid knowledge and necessary expertise by coming forward with appropriate innovative solutions. Project aims to bring:

policy improvements to be aligned to their needs of women in Danube region;
development of innovative solutions and training models for improvement of the entrepreneurial culture, skills and competencies among them

About “ifempower”

9 partners from 7 countries (among them – 4 universities) work together till summer 2021 to build tailor-made entrepreneurship curricula for female students and pilot it. Steinbeis is responsible for mentorship program within new entrepreneurship module. Mentorship handbook, available in 7 languages, was introduced to participants with emphasis on the ones coming from university environment as a useful tool to attract entrepreneurs in academic environment. Additionally, was pointed out especially the newly established entrepreneurship support point from Stuttgart. So, in Germany women, particularly female students who have questions related to entrepreneurship will receive support from Steinbeis Danube Center. It is to be mentioned that consortium organized a special training session for ifempower support points representatives in Porto at the beginning of this year.

SMEmPOWER Efficiency

Bucharest, 28.02.2020: Roxana Boboruta and Juergen Raizner attended Energy Efficiency Seminar organized within Horizon 2020 funded project “SMEmPower Efficiency”. Steinbeis was invited to present Learning Energy Efficiency Networks as best practice from Germany, ready for implementation in Romania.

SMEmPOWER Efficiency aims to

empower the knowledge and skills of at least 720 energy experts of SMEs and connect them into a platform
elaborate concrete energy savings proposals in at least 160 selected SMEs pilot sites
facilitate the connection with over 5000 energy professionals through the web platform.
enhance the energy efficiency of at least 80 pilot sites

Project website

Meassures to optimize energy efficiency require investments. To achieve a quick return of investment is cruicle success factor in promoting energy efficiency. Juergen Raizner introduced Learning Energy Efficiency Networks to the participants of the event.

More on LEEN in Romania

Steinbeis is supporting actions aimed to improve framework in order to promote best practice examples. One of these initiatives is “Romania Eficienta” project to which Steinbeis center from Bucharest is willing to contribute by organizing expericence exchange mission.

Also in the field of energy efficiency, Steinbeis Transfer Management is willing to facilitate projects with Icelandic partners or to join international consortiums based on exchanging best practices. December 2019 was dedicted to build connections with most important companies from Iceland providing services for geothermal energy and energy efficiency in general.

We thank SAMER, Society of Auditors and Energy Manager from Romania, and Servelect for organising a high level seminar – and for inviting us.

Steinbeis at ifempower event in Porto

Porto, 02.02.-06.02.2020: consortium meeting, expert training and multiplier event – an intensive work program has been completed. ifempower entrepreneurship modul is ready for implementation at partner universities. ifempower mentorship program, elaborated by Steinbeis, is accepted.

Main subjects of transnational meeting of partners were focused on implementing mentorship program and on establshing entrepreneurship support points in partner countires. Staff training for entrepreneurship support points insures that responsible experts will act in line with project requirements. Representatives of Steinbeis, Roxana Boboruta and Juergen Raizner, became certified support point staff.

Juergen Raizner moderated interactive workshop on ifempower Mentorship Program. The session was accompanied by valuable points of view from entrepreneurs coming from Austria, Hungary, Germany and Portugal. Final version of mentorship handbook under the responsibility of Steinbeis was agreed. ifempower Mentorshib Program will be launched at partnering universities. Handbook is available in English. Translations into German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Romanian, Portuguese and Spanish language will follow. Steinbeis presentation on ifempower Mentorship Program is available here.

Organized by our Portuguese partner, Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovacao at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, project partners received multicultural and valuable input from stakeholders. Thus, 57 entrepreneurs from 12 EU countries offered different approaches related to answer the challenge “How to nurture the entrepreneurial potential of women?”. Various workshop methods were applied with the purpose of knowledge exchange and synergies in the field of female entrepreneurship focusing on successful mentorship and counselling programs.

ifempower aims to empower female students from higher education institutions to get engaged in entrepreneurship. ifempower investigates the main roles, hindrances, gaps and needs of female entrepreneurs to elaborate an internationally transferable module for university students from any fields to broaden their knowledge on entrepreneurship related topics and to provide hands-on training for their engagement in self-employment and entrepreneurship. The project represents an innovative and participatory approach by developing a mentorship programme for these students through the involvement of practicing entrepreneurs. ifempower will also launch personal consultancy services for any interested women and an online support toolkit available for the broader public coping with issues rooting in female entrepreneurship.

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Alpine Research and Innovation Capacity Governance – kick-off meeting

A project of Steinbeis Danube Center, Austria

Milano, 26.11.2019: Steinbeis project manager Roxana Boboruta attends A-Ring kick-off meeting as observer. A-RING’s main project goal is to establish the basis for an effective and permanent transnational cooperation among different levels and actors, to develop a shared R&I policies for the Alpine Region (AR). The project fosters mutual recognition among policymaking, clusters, research and business, enhancing an active role of R&I bodies in local and regional development and innovation in strategic topics within AR.

Steinbeis Donau Zentrum located in Vienna is one of the 28 partner institutions involved as observers. A-RING is financed through Interreg Alpine Space program and it is aimed to build: a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) and roadmap for innovation in alpine space; an Alpine Region Open Science Lab; trainings and multi-stakeholder alpine R&I think-thank.

During kick-off meeting, expertise from Steinbeis was proposed to be delivered within Technical Panel (TP) gathering experts from the observers. Thus, Juergen Raizner – expert in Danube region and coordinating Danube Competence Group – is ready to share knowledge into activatian and implementation of working groups for Alpine Seed Labs. TP`s role is to provide work package leaders with technical guidance and suggestions.

Starting from the kick-off meeting proactive discussions in the form of design thinking were held between project partners. Concerning the subject which directly involves the observers but also the ones aimed to link alpine space with other macro-regions, questions targeted the best practices into implementing the „living lab“. How should be designed the Alpine SeedLabs? How to develop further a SeedLab? How digital and phisical space should be reconciled when implementing the concept?

Besides being available to contribute to smooth running of the project, Steinbeis Danube Competence Group through Donau Zentrum is ready to support dialogue with other stakeholders and contribute to macro-regions synergies, especially related to Danube region.

A-RING is a project with chances to achieve great results and develop a reliable SRIA (Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda). Cohesion was achieved starting with the kick-off meeting as all project partners were invited to visit the „Science & Technology Museum“ in Milan city centre. Museum offers amazing mind travel into the speed of innovation especially related to the past century: hosting 300t Toti submarine and a few miligrams of Moon rock from Apollo 11 mission offered to the President of Italy

A-RING is a project with chances to achieve great results and develop a reliable SRIA (Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda). Cohesion was achieved starting with the kick-off meeting as all project partners were invited to visit the „Science & Technology Museum“ in Milan city centre. Museum offers amazing mind travel into the speed of innovation especially related to the past century: hosting 300t Toti submarine and a few miligrams of Moon rock from Apollo 11 mission offered to the President of Italy.

YES! EUSDR

26.06.2019, Bucharest: Youth – Entrepreneurship – Science. YES! EUSDR. Steinbeis Romania organised this official side event to Annual Forum of EU Strategy for Danube Region.

For details, please go to our Event website.

STM at National Participation Days EUSDR

Tulcea, 15./16.05.2019: Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration of Romania and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania, in partnership with the Tulcea City Council and the Agapedia Foundation organized for the first time in Romania, the EUSDR National Participation Days. Indeed, this was an unique event dedicated to the promotion of the progresses and challenges diffrent countries are facing within the EUSDR.

“National Participation Days (NPD) are meetings of actively involved, interested or potential stakeholders of the EUSDR on the national, regional, and local levels. These meetings address civil society organisations and networks, local actors, academia, public authorities on the local and regional level as well as national institutions and experts active in the EUSDR institutions.”

Among speakers: Melania-Gabriela Ciot (State Secretary Ministry of Foregin Affairs), Radu Gorincioi (National Coordinator EUSDR), Claudia Singer (PAC 10), Stefan Barth (Agapedia), Stefan Lüdgenau (Civil Society Forum) – and Jürgen Raizner, Steinbeis Romania.

Agenda

Revision of EUSDR Action Plan is going on. Jürgen Raizner pointed out that Romania, currently holding the presidency of EUSDR, should use this leading role to contribute to a new strategy with profund knowledge on what is really necessary to do. A clear statement followed: projects can be financed by using various programs of EC. Danube Transnational Program contributes significantly to the success of EUSDR. But there exist programs with larger budgets and less bureaucracy. Jürgen Raizner mentioned an example. Steinbeis is project partner in ifempower, funded by Erasmus+. There are 4 Danube countries involved in this action to empower females to become entrepreneurs. Other project partners come from Spain, Portugal and Iceland. Important is that a project brings impact to the Danube Region.

Jürgen Raizner invited participants of NPD 2019 to Steinbeis’ side event to EUSDR Annual Forum: YES! EUSDR. The conference on Youth – Entrepreneurship – Science is based on European Early Innovators Initiative, a project what was implemented with support from Danube Strategic Project Fund (DSPF). Jürgen Raizner took the chance to thank Claudia Singer (PAC 10) who is responsible for DSPF.

Start-up BW Summit 2019

Steinbeis enterprises from Romania and Ukraine were exhibitors at Baden-Württemberg’s major event on start-ups, organized by the Ministry of Economics, Labor and Housing Baden-Württemberg.

Event resulted in a great networking opportunity to present STM’s newest services for enterprises and other actors working on innovation. The 25.000 m² hall of Landesmesse opened for 350 start-ups from Baden-Württemberg and international partner regions, 400 B2B partners from large corporations and SMEs, VCs, Business Angels – and 5,000 participants!

Jürgen Raizner and Ana Turcan took the chance to visit most of the exhibitors in order to get update with the latest innovative start-ups and their solutions. For two ongoing European projects, European Early Innovators Program and ifempower, new connections are established as relevant stakeholders were among the exhibitors. State Secretary Katrin Schütz visited Steinbeis stand and got acquainted with the competence group of Steinbeis Centers in Bucharest, Stuttgart, Uzhgorod and Vienna.

Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann and the Minister of Economic Affairs, Dr. Ing. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, were enthusiastic about the high level of response received by the second, even more international, summit of the state campaign. The minister announced to establish the Start-up BW Summit as the central event in Baden-Württemberg’s start-up scene. In bilateral discussion with Jürgen Raizner, Minister Hoffmeister-Kraut thanked him for his commitment in promoting female entrepreneurship (ifempower).

Steinbeis Transfer Management S.r.l. in Romania participated at the event as support organisation for start-ups. Priority is given on knowledge based businesses. In most cases those are established in cooperation with technology transfer centers (Steinbeis Network Romania), hosted by universities. STM also designs and implements projects to foster the establishment of start-ups, e.g. the European Early Innovators Initiative (project of Danube Strategic Project Fund) or ifempower (Erasmus+).

Ukrainian Steinbeis Transfer Management Ltd. is established as a technology transfer center in partnership with University Uzhgorod. Students of this well known and highly recognized Ukrainian university develop promising projects with high potential to become succesful start-ups. Three examples: Compositions of essential oils with wide range of antimicrobial activity | Remote monitoring system with elements of augmented reality for fireworkers | Autonomous Injection Module Device. Steinbeis supports those young scientists.

Both Steinbeis enterprises, the Romanian as well as the Ukrainian, received strong attention from participating start-ups who look for suppliers. Discussed topics, among others: software development in Ukraine, manufacturing prototypes in Romania.

Summit website

Digital Danube

12.12.2018, Bucharest: Opening Session of 2-day-event “Digital Danube”. Participants are welcommed by Vice Prime Minister Gratiela Gavrilescu (Minister of Environment), Alexandru Petrescu (Minister of Communications and Information Society) and Jürgen Raizner, representing German Steinbeis Centers.

Romania holds presidency of EUSDR. This is both a great opportunity and responsibility when taking into account that EUSDR is in process of renewal. The Action Plan is almost obsolete. Structures of Priority Areas, Steering Groups and Working Groups are in discussion. A sort of leadership is required while the bottom-up approach in designing the strategy remains valid. Jürgen Raizner pointed out such challenges in his opening speech. He also referred to cross-sectoral projects, such as European Early Innovators Progam and ifempower. Both projects are to be understood as models for further actions to promote knowledge based entrepreneurship in Danube Region. It is agreed to deepen collaboration.

We thank Cristian Ilie for an excellent moderation of the event.

Second day of the event as dedicated to discuss projects for a Digital Danube. Among those projects: “Attractive Danube”, an ongoing Danube Transnational Program for improving capacities for enhancing territorial attractiveness of the Danube Region. Sabina Leopa, Urbsofia, presented a helpful output: Territorial Attractiveness Atlas of the Danube Region what will be followed by a monitoring platform. A strategic project of the Ministry: “One team – on stream” for creating a research and knowledge base, connecting rivers Danube and Rhine. This project is promoted by STM and presented to members of Steering Group PA 7 (Knowledge Society).

CoDCR and Steinbeis

Extended Executive Committee of the Council of Danube Cities and Regions (CoDCR) meets in Sofia. There was a noticeable low participation of mayors. However, there is a clear commitment to strengthening capacities to develop projects by using existing facilities, e.g. the status of CoDCR as legal entity.

CoDCR’s general secretariat in Bucharest supports new Romanian presidency in EUSDR.

Jürgen Raizner attends the CoDCR meeting as alternate general secretary.

Special Guest: Rudolf Schicker presents new Danube Strategy Point with offices in Vienna and Bucharest. Congratulation to him for becomming DSP Coordinator.

Early Innovators PPP Meeting Uzhgorod

Uzhgorod, October 16^th: Second Private-Public-Partnership event was focused on Biology, Medicine, Engineering and Artificial Intelligence. Event was held in the premises of Uzhhorod National University – the biggest higher educational and research institution in Transcarpathian Region, Ukraine

The concept of this event was to link research with industry, by stimulating a target-oriented interaction among stakeholders and decision-makers from various regions. Funding opportunities coming from both public and private programs were presented to young entrepreneurs from Ukraine. Purpose of this event was to make young scientists aware of the existence of funding programs and analyze how best practice from Western regions can be adapted to current situation in Eastern Danube region. Foreign participants of the conference met with young entrepreneurs and scientists from Ukraine, who presented their startup projects. The discussions on further cooperation was held between EEII project partners and invited institutions.

EEII – the European Early Innovators Innitiative – is a project of Danube Strategic Project Fund with STM as lead partner.

Agenda

Travel arrangements

Review of UzhNU

Welcome remarks were made by Prof. Ihor Studeniak – Vice-Rector of Uzhhorod National University, who encouraged young researchers to explore the opportunities, which exist in Danube Region and are designed to support market-oriented research. Prof, Studeniak assured that Uzhhorod National University as a strategic project partner will continue to support the implementation of EEII. He also pointed out that the University is ready to become project partner in future European Early Innovators Program.

Next speaker, Mr. Jurgen Raizner – director of Steinbeis Romania – described Steinbeis business model in general and explained activities, which are performed in Danube Region. His presentation of EEII indicated benefits for invited stakeholders.

Mr. Mike Nagorkin, organizer of the EEII event in Ukraine, presented the results of the executed research on support infrastructure for young scientists. Mr. Nagorkin has also described the start-up competitions, conferences, innovation parks and funding programmes existing in Ukraine.

Project Partner Common Regions, represented by Mrs. Karolina Fortunenko, spoke about the start-up infrastructure in Slovakia. Ukrainian young entrepreneurs were encouraged to participate in the start-up competitions of Slovakia and use the facilities which exist in Slovakia – in just a few kilometer distance.

AREA Science Park was presented by Mrs. Sara Zanchiello by video conference. She spoke about the support, which will be provided to the young entrepreneurs from Ukraine, who has submitted their start-up ideas to the EEII project consortium.

Students and researchers from Ukraine presented five projects ideas:

Composition of essential oils with wide range of antimicrobial activity;
Artificial reality tourist guide;
Autonomous Injection Module Device;
Radiological monitoring test;
Remote monitoring system with elements of augmented reality

High potential is identified and 3 of the presented projects are pre-selected by Jürgen Raizner for further evaluation.