Agrifood business and innovation calls event

The event ‘Agribusiness organizational challenges and European tools for incorporating innovation’ is being held by the Aroma Innovation Hub on Friday February 2018 at the Orange Grove (17:00-19:00, Vas. Konstantinou 5-7). Taking part in the event is the National Documentation Centre, National Contact Point for Horizon 2020, co-ordinator for Enterprise Europe Network-Hellas, the Greek node of the largest international innovation and entrepreneurship network Enterprise Europe Network and member of the European project INNO-4-AGRIFOOD.

The newest businesses in the agricultural sector fail or remain stagnant, even if they begin with unique products and high expectations. To a certain extent, this is a result of a lack of understanding of the customers and their needs. The antidote is for businesses, from the very beginning, to listen to the final recipients of their products. The good practices of the agricultural industry in Holland and elsewhere lead the way in the new organisational business structure and the focus on stakeholders.

George Megas, a consultant for Horizon 2020 at the National Documentation Centre (EKT), will present the online funding and innovation opportunities for agribusiness. As co-ordinator for Enterprise Europe Network-Hellas, EKT supports innovative and outward-looking enterprises in 17 areas, including Agri-food, in acquiring access to new markets and capital for Research and Development through funding programmes and tools such as Horizon 2020 and the SME Instrument. In addition, through EKT’s personalised advisory and management services for innovation and scaling up of business, interested parties can be helped in their search for suitable technology to improve innovation. Finally, he will present the opportunities available through the European consortium INN-4-AGRIFOOD, the objective of which is the fostering of co-oeration of more than 11 million SMEs in the Agri-food sector, providing online collaboration opportunities, tools and applications for the improvement of collaboration in this sector.

Kyriakos Kyriakopoulos, Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Strategy and Marketing, ALBA Graduate Business School, American College of Greece will present the customer-centred business strategy of the agri-food sector. This will be followed by discussion and further opportunities for networking between participants.

More information on the programme and event can be found on its website.

The National Documentation Centre is National Contact Point for Horizon 2020 and a number of its individual programmes, supporting Greek academic, research and business communities in their participation. All stages of the projects are covered, from proposal preparation to implementation and exploitation of research results. EKT services include: Information and Advisory Services, Helpdesk, Development and Handling of informative material, Organisation of events and seminars, Partner search for the formation of consortia and joint proposal submission. It documents national participation and publishes statistics and performance indicators.

In addition, it co-ordinates the largest business support network, Enterprise Europe Network-Hellas. To meet the requirements of the Greek community, it includes systematic updates and support services for those enterprises targeting international markets using innovative technologies.