Upskilling Lab 4.0 kick off in sofia

The EU funded project UpskillingLab 4.0 kicked off in Sofia, Bulgaria, on the 12th and 13th December. The main project goal is to provide skill improvement opportunities to companies’ staff (managers and employees) in order to connect international start-ups, scaleups, and established companies operating in specific verticals with focus on modern technologies and innovation (Industry 4.0). The meeting was an opportunity for all the partners to get more acquainted with the details of the project.
 
The consortium delivering the project is composed of:
●       Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), leader of the consortium
●       Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC), from Bulgaria
●       Chamber of Craft & Small Business of Slovenia (CCSBS), from Slovenia
●       University of Deusto, from Spain
●       European Startup Network (ESN), from Belgium
●       Inqubator Leeuwarden (INQ), from the Netherlands

​On Thursday the 12th, the meeting opened with presentations by Veselin Iliev and Christina Kasparyan, from BIA, giving a general overview of the project and clarifying administrative and financial details to the partners. The partners agreed on the date of the next meeting, which will be hosted by CCSBS, in Portorož (Slovenia) on the 26th and 27th of May.
 
The meeting continued with several presentations on the upcoming activities. Massimo Privitera, from ESN, responsible for dissemination and promotion, presented the first draft of the dissemination strategy and the initial concept for the newsletter. Milena Koleva, from KISMC, contributed to the discussion on communication with a presentation of a few options for the logo, and the partners agreed on the version that is currently used on the website and on the communication materials.
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​The first day of the meeting closed with a general presentation by Jose A. Campos, from Deusto, on the Skills development framework, the Intellectual Output (O2) for which Deusto is responsible. The aim of such a framework is to map the necessary competences and skills for open innovation in Industry 4.0. It will serve as a pedagogical guide made of relevant tools and methods.
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On the 13th Friday, the meeting saw few other presentations on future activities and intellectual outputs.
Milena Koleva, from KSIMC, gave a presentation on Business-to-business open innovation (O2/A1), one of the sub-outputs included in the Skills development framework, which will provide an overview of the paradigm of open innovation and then a guideline for the implementation process of such paradigm by the business.

The meeting closed with a presentation by Sasha Dijkstra, from Inqubator Leeuwarden, on the Collaboration management framework (O2/A2), another sub-output included in the Skills development framework, which will be based on the standard CEN/TS 16555 Part 5 (Collaboration Management), and will elaborate on different modes of collaboration (i.e. gaining "exposure", "trend-spotting", acceleration programmes, procurement and co-development, co-creation, investment, acquision).

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Author:
European Startup Network