UNION OF BULGARIAN BLACK SEA LOCAL AUTHORITIES (UBBSLA)     

http://www.ubbsla.org/en/

UBBSLA is an independent non-governmental, voluntary, self-governing and non-profit association established as a juridical person in 1992. They unite the interests of all member municipalities and encourag strong and effective local self-government and active citizen participation in the Black Sea Region in Bulgaria.

UBBSLA coordinates the activities of its member in the sphere of local government, energy efficiency, tourism, culture, transport, environmental and sustainable development.

Since its establishment, UBBSLA has been developed, managed and implemented more than 50 projects funded under EU programmes, national or regional donors. They own a great international network with public and public-private organizations in nearly all EU countries. They have completed and been running a numerous projects under H2020, FP7, INTERREG IVC, INTERREG Dunabe, INTEREGG Balkan-Med, Leonardo, Southeast Europe, EASME, Erasmus+, CBC Black Sea Programme,  national OPs.

UBBSLA is the Lead partner, responsible for the implementation of the project activities in Bulgaria.

STYRIAN TECHNOLOGY PARK – Business Support Centre and Incubator & Regional Centre for Technology Development (STP)  

 https://www.stp.si/

STP is the first Slovenian technology park, has been founded in 1994 and is a non-profit public business support organization. The main scope of STPs activities is focused on provision of comprehensive support for young SMEs in Podravje region, in different stages of their lifecycle – from the “setting up the business” stage, to the stages of growth, development, internationalization, restructuring activities, etc.

STP acts in two areas: 1.Business Support Centre (nationally certified business incubator) for development of dynamic, innovative business ideas of micro and small enterprises, with substantial input of knowledge in their products and/or services. 2.Regional Center for Technology Development (RCTR), pursuing technological and innovative research and development sphere among / with different target groups and topics.

STP is also a daughter company of Maribor Regional Development Agency. Their work is constantly supported via Quadraple helix institutional ecosystem.

It represents a focal point of/between business and academia sector. As such, it has the access to a wide target group of students, researchers and knowledge available within the regional university environment on one side and the access to a wide target group of SMEs and mature enterprises in the region.

One of important regular tasks is also educational orientation / support, where we execute own and collaboration mentoring and supporting programmes.

eNEET Rural project is partly built on two good case practices of STP from the executed projects NOBLE Ideas (SEE) and PHILOXENIA (MED).

STP is a project partner, responsible for implementation of project activities in Slovenia.

Consorzio Oltrepo Mantovano (COM)

https://www.oltrepomantovano.eu/

COM is a public body made up of 23 municipalities, established in 1989, count about 118.000 inhabitants. It acts as a Local Development Agency, coordinating and propelling initiatives to promote the development and renewal of the area (rural area in the north of Italy).

COM works at innovative and multi-level. Their principal aims are to pursue the productive, occupational and territorial development of the area and intervene for the qualification of existing companies and help the development of new entrepreneurial initiatives, also in the field of innovation.

Their recent experiences with Projects for Young People and Women have given new ideas to start revising youth policy in this area and launch initiatives for the restoration of disused urban spaces to create space for activities.

In 2014-2016 young people from Mantua through SHALOM Project, funded by ERASMUS+, visited some start-ups in Israel, some co-operating technology centres, and met some Municipal Administrations located in several parts of the country that illustrated the techniques used to facilitate youth employment.

The results were adopted by government institutions and companies at local and national level.

The experience gained from these projects has given the right incentive to begin transferring what is learned and multiplying knowledge.

COM will act as a project partner, responsible for implementation of project activities in Italy.

Fruto Consulting Ltd (FRUTO)  

www.fruto.eu

FRUTO is a 100% Hungarian-owned company founded in 2003 as FRUTO Unlimited which was split to FRUTO Ltd (for-profit) and ENNODUS Nonprofit in 2016.

It is specialized in innovation management and research and development in the area of building energetics and construction, software development and science communication. To stimulate the business success of the integrated technological solutions developed with their contribution, they also provide consultancy, concept generation and validation, patent search, SOA, IPR related consultancy, market research, business planning, competitor analysis and securing services. Being part of national and international funded projects, their portfolio includes complete project management services. Further, they assist the clients to develop professional communication and dissemination campaign for the achieved results and launching their products on the market.

Their expert team implements designated activities from the project starts till the commercialisation. The skilled professionals of FRUTO are well trained and experienced in innovation and R&D (especially in Fp5-Fp7 within more than 100+ projects were implemented with their involvement an H2020, AAL, IE, EUREKA, EUROSTARS and Structural Funds) and industrial projects.

Their specific aim is at:

a) promoting the technical development process of new products and services on the domain of social innovation

b) fostering the successful market entry of social innovative solutions and technologies

c) assisting the access to funding opportunities of social innovative ideas

d) contributing to the implementation of the research and development strategies of the European Union

e) improving the innovation performance of NGOs and small and medium-sized enterprises in the European Union with special focus on information and communication-, renewable energy – and sustainable development technologies

f) providing knowledge transfer to the EU programs

g) nurturing the setting-up of domestic and foreign social innovation and research and development partnership network.

They nurture good relationship with relevant regional and national networks which facilitate innovative companies. They are always open for the preparation and implementation of efficient technical and advice services according to different sectors of developing companies

FRUTO is a project partner, responsible for implementation of project activities in Hungary.

Center for the Development of the Structural Founds (CPDIS)

www.cpdis.ro

CPDIS is a non-profit organization founded in the fall of 2012 with the aim of promoting understanding and cooperation between people. Pursuing this aim, they encourage and promote all those initiatives which, in terms of solidarity and on the cultural-educational field, allow the interchange of ideas among different cultures, favour the easing of economic imbalances and promote the creation of a true culture of universality and peace. Among these actions, there is a reflection on consumerism, inter-culture and peace with non-formal education methodologies. Their goals are to involve young people into youth people on local, national and international levels, to support youth in creating and implementing their own small scale community-based projects. CPDIS members have participated in many youth projects in local, national and international level, together with partners their coordinators had implemented youth exchanges and youth trainings. Their staff gets the competences and experience through the non-formal education and learning methods. Their project team has these skills, expertise and experiences;

– Networking for youth education activities,

– Promoting of youths at entrepreneurship,

– Sharing experiences, – Creating educational materials together,

– Promoting a good communication between project partners and related organisations,

– Disseminating to the results very active and etc

Many of their international events take place in rural areas where they include marginalized youth like unemployed young people, young people from geographically isolated areas and young people with a hard social background (orphans, from broken families, with immigrant background, etc).

CPDIS has youth workers with solid practical experience in a youth exchange activities.

CPDIS has participated in more EU special in Erasmus + projects. They have experience working with NEETs youth in their projects. They have implemented “EVS” project with Spain and Moldova and targeting 400 youths in schools and kinder garden in the last 3 years. Their project “TRY” was based on financial education for youth with few opportunities, while the project “Youth Focus” developed the skills of youth with few opportunities to improve creativity, whereas “Youth support for Youth Development” was executed with Roma Policy Centre.

They have worked in youth exchange field in partnership with Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Turkey and Slovenia.

CPDIS will act as a project partner, responsible for implementation of project activities in Romania.

Asociación Empresarial de Investigación Centro Tecnológico Nacional Agroalimentario Extremadura (CTAEX)   http://www.ctaex.com/en

CTAEX is a private non-for-profit R&D centre located in the region of Extremadura, south-west of Spain. The Centre was founded by an association of SMEs, large companies and co-operatives from the agro-food sector. Among them, the most important processing tomato industries of Spain (http://www.ctaex.com/en/ctaex/empresas-asociadas). This fact makes CTAEX a key stakeholder for the processing tomato sector of Extremadura.

The activities of CTAEX began in 2001, but the Centre had been operating as a research and development unit of the multinational company Nestlé since 1979, as a unit specialised in the processing tomato farming and later transformation. Thus, most of the researchers involved in this project previously worked in the Nestlé R&D centre under processing tomato related R&D lines.

CTAEX is certified as Technological Centre and as Technology Transfer Office (TTO). It does not only work for its associates but for the agro-food sector in general. The Centre has acquired vast expertise in the development of R&D Projects at national level, and has being declared of Public Utility by the Spanish Administration in 2011. CTAEX keeps on working today aiming at improving the competitiveness of the European agro-food sector from a market-oriented approach.

CTAEX will act as a project partner, responsible for implementation of project activities in Spain.

Inclusion AS (Inclusion)

www.inclusion.no

Inclusion was established with the aim of offering  startup programs and job training problems particularly targeting those struggling to obtain jobs due to a variety of different challenges.

They can develop and provide startup training  programs based on online learning, traditional physical room classroom courses or blended learning methodology.

 Inclusion is Norway´s leading supplier of training programs to startups with immigrant background, serving clients in major cities like Oslo and Bergen as well as holding courses for entrepreneurs located in Akershus County Courses developed and provided are held both in Norwegian, English, Spanish and Polish.

 Inclusion Initiated and was leading a pilot project called Startup Forum, a pilot project taking place in 2015 and 2015 funded by Akershus County and Asker Municipality involving developing and testing an online course targeting startups with foreign background living in Oslo and Akershus.  A major part of the project was also to test out support involving e-mentorship.   The pilot program received good feedback from the users. A full scale version of Startup Forum is now launched in the national market and sold to several major organisations serving entrepreneurs with foreign background living in Norway.

Inclusion has also being active partners in two mentorship programs targeting immigrants:

Inclusion was developing and running Jobbmentor – a mentorship programme for enterprises in the municipalities Volda and Ørsta, located on the Norwegian west coast. The programme is for people mentoring refugees learning language while at work. The goal of the programme is to make people mentoring refugees safer in their roles as mentors as well as making the goals of language learning and the learning of written and unwritten codes in Norwegian working life more efficient. Co-partners in this program were Høgskolen i Volda (University of Volda) and Volda Læringssenter/Volda kommune (Volda Learning Center / Volda Municipality). The project was funded by The Norwegian Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi)

The company was also a project partner in a mentorship program labelled Gründersjansen, targeting people with immigrant background living in Asker municipality who are motivated to start their own business. Work included responsibility for providing entrepreneurship insight through workshops and individual mentoring talks for participants taking the online startup course at the Startup Forum platform.

Inclusion will act as a project partner, responsible for sharing their good practices in addressing online courses, e-mentoring and other forms for startup assistance to youth immigrants.