CRANE representatives participate in a regional innovation conference in Greece
- 14. listopada 2015.
- Posted by: Zimo Digital
- Category: Nekategorizirano @en

As a part of the PACINNO project, funded by the IPA Adriatic cross-border cooperation programme, an international conference “Entrepreneurship meets innovation” was held from October 5-7, 2015, in Corfu, Greece, organized by the Ionian University. The main goal of this international event was to gather investors, start-up teams and policy makers in one place in order to discuss the possibilities of the promotion of the Adriatic region’s innovation system.
On the first day of the conference, 14 start-up teams from eight countries of the Adriatic region, selected through evaluation on the national PACINNO demo days, presented themselves to potential investors – business angels and representatives of venture capital funds. Croatian representatives HOVIAP and ULTIJACK presented their projects, a mobile application for the purposes of hotel management (HOVIAP), and a multifunctional jacket with integrated new technology, which transforms into a pillow/head support. Other teams that presented themselves were from Slovenia (3D Survey and Carlock), Italy (Aesis and InTact dbGlove), Albany (Design by Pana), Greece (Wapo), Montenegro (Geostep and Work Puls), Serbia (Explorer and mBrain Train) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Honorar and Scool).
Croatian investors, who also participated as members of the jury, were Davorin Štetner, President, and Damir Mujić and Hrvoje Prpić, members of the Board of Directors of the Croatian Business Angels Network (CRANE).
Italian team InTact dbGlove won first place with their innovative bracelet for blind and deaf-blind people that helps them to communicate with other people, as well as to study and write much faster than by using Braille screen.
Slovenian project 3Dsurvey, a software for geodesy, won second place. Geodetic survey of the terrain is done with the help of drones which saves time greatly, and the software helps to manipulate the received data easily and quickly.
Third place went to the project mBrainTrain, a high-tech company from Serbia which deals with medical solutions and Internet of Things solutions for health improvement. The device records brain (EEG) waves, and the software interprets the data and gives a possibility for the improvement of everyday life and health of people through constant vital signs monitoring.
On the second day of the conference, a panel discussion about innovation policies in the Adriatic region was held, gathering prominent experts: Riccardo Cristoforo Barberi from the European Technology Transfer Network, Nicola Redi, Director of the Vertis Venture Capital Fund, Stefan Schepers, member of the innovation policy management group within the European Union, and Karen Wilson, from the OECD organization and a member of the advisory group for EU HORIZON 2020 programme.
On the third day of the conference, the goals, recent outcomes and the activities of the PACINNO project were presented. They were presented by the project coordinator, Prof. Dr. Andrea Tracogna. Furthermore, Prof. Dr. Panos Kourouthanassis from the Ionian University held a lecture on the challenges that the academic community is faced with regarding the innovation promotion. Innovation map of the Adriatic region was also presented (http://www.adriaticinnovationmap.eu/), created by the scientists of the PACINNO project as a tool for understanding and comparing innovation systems of the countries of the Adriatic region.