Upskill Workshop 8 December 2022
FRC Acceleration program
As a continuation of the “Startup Acceleration Shadowing” activities started in Phase I of the InnoChange program, professionals tasked with managing innovation processes at our four participating universities got the opportunity of learning first-hand from and about one of Europe’s top startup accelerators, Fil Rouge Capital (FRC).
In particular, the opportunity was extended to innovation managers/scouts, as well as a wider circle of academic and non-academic staff involved, or at least interested in, business creation activities at our respective institutions of higher education.
The participants of the “Shadowing Activity” had a chance to attend (i) thematic webinars on topics such as how to de-risk the fundraising process, how to operationally manage the fundraising process, how to avoid/minimize founder conflict, etc.; (ii) pitch training sessions, where the pitch presentations of FRC’s portfolio companies were dissected, analyzed, and iteratively improved by FRC’s expert team; (iii) mentor office hours, where FRC portfolio companies could seek advice from individual FRC’s expert team members in one-on-one sessions, and (iv) the Demo Day of the 2022 Fall Acceleration Program of FRC.
Altogether, more than a dozen representatives of the four InnoChange universities attended more than three dozens of FRC activities in the framework of this Shadowing opportunity. This on top of the startup teams who were delegated into the 2022 FRC Fall Acceleration Program by our four universities for a bone fide full participation in the Program.
Upskill Workshop 23 June 2022
The third Upskill Workshop organized in the framework of the InnoChange project attracted 19 participants from the five universities that form the InnoChange consortium. The workshop covered various issues related to early-stage project- and business development, bringing real-life examples and in-depth discussions to bear on the topics covered, resulting in a lively interactive experience for the participants. The workshop leader was Ales Pustovrh, partner at the Croatia-based venture capital firm Fil Rouge Capital and professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Ljubljana, with plenty of first-hand experience with startup companies as well as a strong theoretical background. The topics covered in the course of the online event included (i) the difference between research, innovation, and business idea; (ii) the ins and outs of prototyping, MVP building, and interview conducting for validation purposes; and (iii) the analysis of various tools that are directly useful for early-stage project, product, and business management in the Lean Startup and related approaches. The workshop was truly interactive, with about half of the participants actively contributing ideas and questions for the discussion.
Agenda:
13.00 – 14.00 What is a good business idea; the difference between research, innovation and business idea.
14.00 – 14.15 Break
14.15 – 15.30 Prototyping, MVP and interviews
15.30 – 16.00 Break + 10 min video with comments
16.00 – 17.00 Tools for a better management of the product and business development process
Teaching I&E Teachers
Work Teaching I&E Teachers – EIT HEI InnoChange
The key strategic objective of the EIT HEI InnoChange project is to develop and improve the
entrepreneurial education curriculum and the associated teacher training at InnoChange HEIs. Since
autumn 2021, InnoChange has been providing an Innovation and Entrepreneurship course which
aims to form the innovative thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset of students. In the meantime,
associated interactive seminars are held for the local I&E teachers.
Training of the Innovation Task Forces
Work Package 3
The Innovation Management Task Force (IMTF)
Within the Work Package 3- Innovation Management for Digital Transformation, the partner universities started the construction of the Innovation Management Task Force (IMTF). The kickoff meeting of the mentors was held on 23.09.2021, and soon the innovation scouts will be guided by their mentor to proceed in solving their challenges.
Acceleration shadowing
Acceleration Shadowing
As contribution to the InnoChange project Startup Wise Guys offered a so-called “Acceleration
Shadowing” to the nominated InnoChange participants. The participants of Shadowing witnessed
daily activities and workshops designed to help the startups succeed, avoid common startup
mistakes and get to know the structure and processes behind the management of an acceleration
program first-hand.
Mentors and scouts
In order to build the Innovation Task Force team of each university , our colleagues from WP3
offered two workshops for training our scouts and mentors.
Upskill workshops
The Upskilling Workshops are aimed at training HEI consortium partners’ staff in Innovation
Management and Entrepreneurship. This is a capacity-building activity, which should enable partner
HEI to then better leverage the innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities in their own
communities. Upskilling Workshops will be provided as two full-day events. The first workshop
focuses on the basis of innovation and innovation fostering techniques and the second workshop
focuses on entrepreneurship. After this training, participants should be better prepared to
stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities and activities in their own communities of
students, researchers, and teachers.
OPA – Online Pre-Accelerator program for startup teams
Online Pre-Accelerator
This Online Pre-Accelerator activity is directed at new teams of young researchers and
entrepreneurs created within the five partner Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). The OPA is an 8- week long online program with occasional mentoring sessions, weekly assignments, and a virtual Demo Day at the end of the program with the option to proceed to a full-time acceleration
program, and it is designed to help startups in a very early stage to test their idea and to get
prepared for scaling it internationally. Upon successfully completing the OPA, the best startup teams should be ready to apply for one of the investment-based SWG accelerator programs, if interested. An OPA activity ended by DEMO DAY.
