On February 5th, key actors and stakeholders of the Albanian innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem got together to discuss the way forward.
The day started with opening remarks by the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy Mr. Endrit Yzeriaj and Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and Business Climate Ms. Delina Ibrahimaj. Mr. Enzo Damiani, Program Officer at the Delegation of the European Union to Albania shared how far the innovative ecosystem in Albania has come. Mr. Sebastian Berwanger, Project Manager at EU4Innovation showed appreciation for the continuous cooperation between the ecosystem actors, to strengthen the joint efforts of the EU, Germany and Sweden.
A series of inception studies were presented: Mr Gerti Rrotani presented the findings of ‘The Tracer Study’, and Ms. Eileen Trenkmann presented her work on ‘The Albanian Start-up Ecosystem and its Internationalisation efforts’. Prof. Assoc. Dr. Genc Alimehmeti was the last to take the stage. He presented The Research & Development Landscape in Albania – Perspectives of HEI to Participate in the Horizon Europe Programme.
The event continued with the pitching of the ongoing interventions of the EU4Innovation project.
EU4Innovation has strategized its actions along to the start-up lifecycle. Related to the awareness raising for innovation and entrepreneurship, representatives from 5 consortia that are implementing INNOVET, took the stage and shared their involvement in the activation and engagement of high-schoolers and VET students.
Then, representatives from incubation programmes: Tirana Inc; Good Start-up School; The Entrepreneur Journey; Empowering Early-Stage Start-ups; and SEAM presented the strategy and tailored plan to support start-ups in early stage. Lastly, representatives from Uplift and Growpreneur shared their planned activities, to further support growth-stage start-ups in Albania.
An inspiring presentation on ‘The Importance of Branded Narratives and Storytelling in Modern Marketing’ followed, which lead to a workshop session where ecosystem shareholders started working on building the branded narrative of the Albanian Start-up and Innovation Ecosystem.
