Helsinki COWIN Marketplace exceeded all expectations

HELSINKI, FINLAND: The first edition of the COWIN Marketplace took place in Helsinki from the 14th to 17th of June 2011during the EURIPIDES Forum, the yearly conference organized by the EUREKA Cluster for smart systems.

The Forum, which attracted more than 150 participants and high-level speakers, has been the occasion for COWIN to organize a matchmaking event branded COWIN Marketplace.

COWIN Marketplace was dedicated to optimize efficient networking for the set-up of new collaborations and partnerships. COWIN’s mission is indeed to facilitate the take-up of advanced technologies, in order to capture innovation, win new markets and facilitate profits and investments in the technological area of miniaturized smart systems.

For its first edition, the COWIN Marketplace has been a great success. About 50 matchmaking meetings were prearranged to give the opportunity to promote “gold-nuggets” technologies developed in the course of the FP6 and FP7 European Commission research projects.

COWIN marketplace was the place to be to optimize the generation of business opportunities. Over 50 meetings were organized, leading to more than 20 concrete potential collaborations.

A win-win market place where offers met the demand: managers offering high scientific expertise and technologies met with top industrial decision makers participating at the Euripides 5th annual forum.

As bridging the gap to market often requires additional resources, COWIN's partners organized an information session entitled “Financing major milestones from R&D to market". John Magan (Deputy Head of Unit, DG INFSO, European Commission), Jaanus Pikani (Scanbalt Vice Chairman), Pekka Kahri (VP, AAL Association), Petra Weiler (EPoSS), Geoffroy Dubus (Director, ICT France, GIMV) and Remy Renaudin (Director of the EURIPIDES Office) described the suitable support their organization can provide all along the technology value chain.

Concrete opportunities to set up new Euripides projects have been discussed during the pre-arranged meetings. New projects should emerge in a very short term contributing to the growth of the current Euripides portfolio today worth 400 M€ invested in 50 projects.