ifempower. Iceland.

20./21.03.2019, Bifröst, Iceland: 2nd Transnational meeting for ifempower project

Partnering other 8 well-reputed institutions from 6 EU countries, STC EAST-WEST Joint-Ventures from Germany is deeply involved in supporting female empowerment in the field of entrepreneurship. Thus, ifempower project which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union is aimed to implement this concept at the academic level. An innovative module on entrepreneurship will be accredited and launched at partner universities for 2 semesters. The module is addressed to female students who will benefit also from practical guidance and knowledge though the mentorship component of this module.

Project started in September 2018 and it is designed for 3 years during which the research-based module will be piloted between March 2020 -July 2021.

STC director Jurgen Raizner participated together with project manager Roxana Boboruta at the meeting organized by the Icelandic partner in this project. Bifröst University is an active member of the Icelandic and European research communities, hosting many independent research centres.

Priority of the discussions in Bifröst were the curriculum of entrepreneurship studies and the teaching material. Main responsibility of Steinbeis in this project is to design and pilot the mentorship program.

Results of the preparatory research study conducted by HÉTFA Research Institute were presented to partners as primary basis for the 2 days of debates. Steinbeis contributed to this research with interview-based knowledge from 7 German female entrepreneurs and 3 experts from which some are very interested in playing an active role in the future mentorship program.

Mentorship program is one course in ifempower curriculum and it is recommended to be understood as an “organic part of the module”. Mentors will take students to their enterprises and they provide professional tasks or show-up during courses. Thus in terms of practice (internship), students will get opportunity to work with mentors, assist their work, and get familiar with the general way of leading an enterprise. Mentorship program in the international curricula contributes also to promote successful education models, in this case – dual education. Innovative model is to combine mentorship and internship in a project competence study what is to be understood as basis for dual education.

A mentorship handbook serving especially universities but also Entrepreneurship Support Points (as component of current project), describing the complete mentorship program will be elaborated in English language and translated into Icelandic, German, Hungarian and Romanian by February 2020.

Mentorship program will be designed on best practice examples from Steinbeis university and other already existing successful female mentorship German programs which were analyzed by our Steinbeis center in advance.

Stay tuned with the evolution of the project on www.ifempower.eu

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.

DSPF Networking: Vienna

The purpose of the networking event was to present the projects funded from DSPF to more stakeholders, and to enable exchange between EUSDR & EUSAIR actors.

Ana Turcan and Jürgen Raizner represented European Early Innovators Initiative at DSPF Networking event.

12 projects are supported by DSPF. The 12 projects were at the center of attention throughout the day. Representatives of various institutions emphasized the importance of the projects for the whole Danube region:

Exhibition | Project Space

Steinbeis representative at the EEII project stand answered questions related progress of EEII and discussed synergies with other projects. Furthermore, future partnership which aims to design European Early Innovators Program was put on high emphasis.

Qualitative networking was supported also through the presence of Mr. Eric Bartha in his quality as representative of Council of Danube Cities and Regions and possible future project partner.

Session “Empowering the Youth”, moderated by Claudia Singer (PAC 10)

DSPF fosters integration and reconciliation of Danube countries, with a particular focus on the training of young people. Main question of this session was, what support youth in Danube Region needs. But also: how to get in touch with “the” youth. Six projects, funded by DSPF, address exactly to the societal challenges of youth and EUSDR: EEII, SECCo2, The Bridge, RONNI, I-VET, DIY-ACCEL (DSPF projects on web). Synergies were discussed. Solutions are under construction.

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