The two-day conference, which took place in Zagreb on February 14 and 15, marked the start of the Scinergy project, which the Innovation Center Nikola Tesla (ICENT) is implementing in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Education and the World Bank to encourage stronger cooperation between industry and science in order to increase the innovation and competitiveness of the Croatian economy. The conference attracted numerous business and scientific communities, investors and decision-makers.
At the conference, representatives of more than 100 companies and more than 100 top scientists met for the first time in the format of speed dating, who were selected from as many as 250 companies and 140 scientists in Croatia to participate in the Scinergy project. During the 15-minute meetings, each company representative had the opportunity to speak with up to three scientists, thus forming pairs for future collaborations. One hundred couples with the greatest matching of needs and interests continued to explore and define cooperation in group workshops, and in the next two months, under the professional guidance of ICENT experts, they will work intensively on the development of their future innovative projects. Among the selected companies are well-known small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, as well as leaders of the Croatian economy, while the selected scientists come from about 15 leading scientific and research institutions.
Conference participants had the opportunity, among other things, to hear about the importance of establishing a culture of innovation, which was discussed by Rajesh Chandy, Professor of Marketing and the Tony and Maureen Wheeler Chair in Entrepreneurship at London Business School, while Hrvoje Pandžić, Head of the Department of Energy and Power Systems at FER, shared his experiences about previous successful collaborations between companies and scientists.
At the conference, the Innovation Center Nikola Tesla also presented its projects focused on the development of innovations, and new technologies and encouraging entrepreneurship: EDIH CROBOHUB++, KITT4SME, AEROSTREAM and EIT Urban Mobility.
The Scinergy project is a global pilot project of the World Bank and partners London Business School (LBS) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the funds are provided by the European Union.
