Nowadays, the nature of work is changing dramatically with the advancement and introduction of innovative technologies in the industry. With the introduction of computerization and the advent of trends such as big data, advanced robots, IoT and many others, digitization is increasingly shaping the world of work. Companies and organizations adopt new ways of production, markets expand and develop, and technology easily replaces human labor in a wide range of non-routine cognitive tasks and now performs a much wider range of manual tasks. This rapidly changing environment stimulates the creation of new professions and requires new skills and competencies.
INI-Novation GmbH has initiated a new European project called “Skills and Competences for Work in Industry 4.0”, which is funded by the ERASMUS+ program for the period 2020 – 2022. The main goal of the project is to provide a comprehensive and useful indication of initiatives, programs, methods and materials regarding the development and self-improvement of personal skills and competencies in industry transformation.
The project involves four European organizations from Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Germany with expertise in various fields – human resources, innovative technologies, professional training and business development.
Kickoff Meeting “Industry 4.0 Skills”
On January 13, 2021, our project team gathered online for a project kickoff meeting. We discussed the first activities to be undertaken in order to raise the awareness of the various stakeholders in our home countries about the project on the one hand, and on the other – to learn about their experiences related to the key competences for Industry 4.0 and to collect of potential good practices.
One of our main tasks is to collect good practices from the field of new technologies and from the field of their deployment, which will give the necessary skills and competencies needed in the very near future to people employed in the industry. We’re getting started now. All good practices will be described in a special document called Catalog “Skills and Competences for Work in Industry 4.0” and will be available in a special Open Access Database.
If you want to share your good practice with us, now is the time. Write to us in the “Contacts” section of this website or post them on the project’s Facebook page. After review and discussion with you, our team will add them to the catalog, which will be distributed in four European languages: English, German, Slovenian and Slovak.
INI-Novation Bulgaria is proud to be partner of the so-called LEARN IP project consortium. The LEARN-IP project targets the development and exploitation of an online training programme to support cultural heritage managers and cultural tourism actors with the effective use of digital technologies to check for compliance with Intellectual Property Right (IPR) regulations. IPR generation has hardly been included in the curricula of formal cultural heritage and tourism education. This has to be changed, because IPR can not only protect rights, but can also be used to develop new business opportunities for those involved. European IPR owners need access to effective ways of protecting their values internationally for growth and competitiveness to avoid that the economic and social potential of IPRs gets lost. They need skills to identify, protect, apply and valorise it. When their ideas, brands and products are pirated and counterfeited, expertise and jobs are affected.
This is exactly where our LEARN-IP comes in: the training programme will act as an online “guided tour” through IPR regulations and will indicate what can be done to legally protect your property, expertise and knowledge. The training will also show when professional help is recommended.This is considered to be very important, because in the professional world very often there is also a financial issue, since legal advice for IPR can be expensive and can hardly be covered by smaller institutions.
In 2021, great support is opening up for financing initial steps towards IP protection: The “Ideas Powered for Business SME Fund” is a 20 million Euro grant scheme created to help European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access their intellectual property rights. Supported by the European Commission and the EUIPO, the “Ideas Powered for Business SME Fund” is aimed at businesses that wish to develop their IP strategies and protect their IP rights, at national, regional or EU level. The fund is covering IP pre-diagnostic services (IP scan) and/or trade mark and design applications. Each SME can be reimbursed up to a maximum of EUR 1 500. More information can be found on the Ideas Powered for business hub: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/online-services/sme-fund.
If you are interested in the LEARN-IP project and if you would need support in setting up your IP strategy, please contact us under info@ini-novation.com.
Great news are coming! Within the European project “CreatINNES – Strategic Partnership for Innovation and Business Skills Development in Cultural and Creative Industries Sector”, two training programs for blended learning are already developed targeting Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) in Europe.
We are six partner organizations INI-Novation GmbH (Germany), Budakov Films (Bulgaria), Business Information Center “INNOBRIDGE” (Bulgaria), Macedonian Enterprise Development Foundation (North Macedonia), Teleberry Kft (Hungary) and Alanam (France), and fully dedicated to our mission – to provide support for CCI startups and freelancers via innovative training programs based on knowledge co-creation and cross-sector collaboration between creativity and business.
CCI face Challenges
The Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) are acknowledged as a source of copious innovation and a key driver for economic growth, increasing the competitiveness of the European economy, especially in specific sectors such as tourism, cultural heritage, and design. Despite its overall economic significance, the field of CCI has faced a lot of challenges, especially nowadays COVID-19 situation, when all industries slowed down their activities.
The training programs are based on large-scale survey conducted in Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, France and North Macedonia among CCI and business sectors there. Based on the received answers, skills gaps were identified and analysis of the training needs was prepared. By exploiting the mutually reinforcing impact of the two sectors, we developed CreatINNES Training Programs to support the innovation and growth of the economy in the European regions.
Two Multilingual Training Programs by CreatINNES
„Entrepreneurship for freelancers and startups“ and „Creative Thinking for Innovation“ are the two training programs developed by CreatINNES consortium. These programs will promote a range of skills needed by CCI entrepreneurs and start-up owners to be successful and thrive in today’s competitive world. Each training program contains 8 modules with very well selected short-burst of information which is clear, concrete and easy to be memorized. The training materials are short and clear enriched with good practices and current trends. Thanks to the practical tests for self-assessment after each module, the learners will be able to monitor their current progress. The training materials are organized in a way that allows learning at any time, in any place.
Easy Accesses for Learners
“CreatINNES Academy” is aesthetically designed web-platform to provide easy, free and secure access to the both Training Programs. The platform is based on the Moodle software package, designed to create web-based educational courses and websites. At the moment the platform is tested and analyses are prepared. The “CreatINNES Academy” web-platform will be available in the spring of 2021.
Dear Stakeholders, we developed CreatINNES Training Programs for blended learning with diligence and professionalism, because we believe that in this way we contribute to the development of the next generation of designers and creative entrepreneurs!
Soon, you will receive detailed information about both training programs.
Topic of the event “Development of skills for valorisation of the European religious heritage and good practices”
The Bulgarian capital Sofia hosted an event organized by “INI-Novation Bulgaria” OOD. under the European project SKIVRE on October 26, 2020.
Participants were representatives from different sectors such as tourism, regional development, students at the Faculty of Theology at Sofia University „St. Kliment Ohridski“, representatives of monastic shops and retailers offering monastic products, as well as other stakeholders interested in the topic “Development of skills for valorization of European religious heritage and good practice”.
The event was organized as a multiplier seminar in Bulgaria in the name of the European project SKIVRE, funded by ERASMUS+ Programme. It presented the results that the partners in the project achieved during their two years of hard work: the SKIVRE Training Program including 10 learning modules and the illustration of many good practices. They were demonstrated during the event as well as the SKIVRE’s online training platform, through which all training materials can be freely accessed by interested stakeholders for self-learning purposes (https://training.skivre.eu/main/toolbox.php).
Topics such as “Monastery production as an exciting connection between the past and the future” were presented by Ms. Diana Georgieva, as well as the results of a market analysis study conducted in 20 European monasteries by the SKIVRE project partners under the lead of Ms. Angela Ivanova from “INI-Novation Bulgaria” OOD. Video presentations of the good practices from Bulgaria “The Kremikovtsi Monastery “St. George the Victorious”, Tsurnogorski Monastery ” St. Kozma and Damian” and the German Monastery “Kloster Bronnbach ” were shown.
Dr. Wolfgang Kniejski, Managing Director of “INI-Novation Bulgaria” OOD, presented an in-depth analysis of the role of monastic products in the development of the regions and the tourism industry. Examples of good practice were provided and many questions were discussed on how to build successful cooperation and networks of interaction between the representatives of tourism and monasteries in a given region.
Additionally, the seminar included external speakers, such as Ms. Blagovesta Chifligarova, an expert in the field of tourism in Bulgaria. She shared her experience in the field of religious tourism in Bulgaria with the other participants, presenting the topic “Religious tourism and its benefits for the development of the regions.” Other external participants also got involved and introduced the audience to their good practices. Due to the great interest and the inability to attend in person, participants had the opportunity to join and participate online in the event.
Monasteries are sacred places for spiritual life. They preserve valuable knowledge and cultural heritage, therefore often become guardians of local traditions.
In the past, monasteries were strongly associated with the regional development also on an economic level by producing wine, beer, food and different items for religious practices. Nowadays, many of them continue their active role within the local communities.
SKIVRE Project, funded by Erasmus+ EU Program, is dedicated on collecting good practices from the European monasteries. The SKIVRE partners, under the guidance of INI-Novation Bulgaria OOD, assembled already 31 good practices showing variety of monastic economic activities which have financial benefits for the monasteries themselves and for the people in the region.
We realized that the monastic production does not obey the typical marketing laws that govern secular production. Monks and nuns use old traditional recipes that they have kept for centuries and strictly follow. The food and drinks produced in the monasteries are mostly ecological and completely natural. These qualities are attractive to local buyers, as well as to those who visit the monastery as tourists.
Our collected good practices will be soon available for free on a specially designed educational platform of SKIVRE.
Bellow, the first 10 good practices are shortly presented:
Good practice 1: Bildhausen Monastery in Germany
The monastery emerged from an endowment that enabled the foundation of a Cistercian monastery in 1158. The monastery is run by the Dominikus-Ringeisen-Werk, a church foundation under public law. Since 1983, a recognised workshop for disabled people has supplemented the existing housing offer with a multitude of job opportunities. Many of the handcrafted products manufactured in the workshops are offered and sold in the monastery shop as well as online.
Good practice 2: The Bronnbach Monastery Shop “Bronnbacher Klosterladen” in Germany
The monastery shop in Bronnbach is a multifaceted facility serving both the sale of monastery products and the purchase of entrance tickets for the listed monastery complex. From this good practice you will learn how to run the monastery shop successfully by applying strategic marketing.
Good Practice 3: The International Trappist Association – International Network to Protect Brand and Values
The International Trappist Association (ITA) unites twenty Trappist abbeys located all over the world. A variety of products for sale are produced by Trappist monks and nuns in these monasteries. It’s a non-profit association, dedicated to assist the members in the production of goods and in the pursuit of standards of excellence.
Good practice 4: MANIFACTUM – Good Things from Monasteries
The German company MANUFACTUM. has been providing the range ‘Good Things from Monasteries (“Gutes aus Klöstern”) for 18 years. It comprises over 300 monastic products from across Europe, including body care products, food, linen, clothes, crockery, sweets, wine, spirits, remedies, books and CDs. Its catalogue has products from 65 European monasteries.
Good practice 5: Authentic Monastic Products with a Strong Brand – Tsurnogorski Monastery “St. St. Kozma and Damian” in Bulgaria
Tsurnogorski monastery “St. St. Kozma and Damian” has an important place in the ecclesiastical, cultural and political history of the Bulgarians of the present-day Central West Bulgaria. In order for the monastery to perform its religious activities, it needs both – financing and generation of its own income from economic activities such as animal husbandry and agriculture. The monastery has started its own production of dairy products – buffalo yoghurt and cheese. Additionally, the monks produce dried sausages from high quality buffalo meat. The monastery maintains its own monastery shop.
Good practice 6: Digital Storytelling for Monastic Products linked to Mount Athos, Greece
“Mount Athos eShop – Product Exhibition of Mount Athos” is operated by a reseller dedicated to promoting the work of Mount Athos Monks. It is not owned by the monasteries of the Mount Athos, but dedicated to their monastic life. An eShop makes available to the public authentic handicrafts which are being produced with care by monks at the Holy Monasteries, Sketes and Cells of Mount Athos, highlighting an important aspect of monastic life.
Good practice 7: Digital Storytelling for Monastic Products: Saint Augustin and Serafeim of Sarov Monastery in Greece
Saint Augustin and Serafeim of Sarov monastery in Greece, founded in 1984 and located close to Nafpaktos and Patras cities, is one of the few monasteries which already offers directly an e-shop for selling their products without any reseller and operates social networking accounts about their products. The monks are producing a variety of monastic products such as food, drinks, artefacts e.t.c.
Good practice 8: EUCOSMIA e-shop, Greece
The monastery was built during the second half of the 10th century. About 50 monks live today in the monastery, where is applied an extensive construction project in order to restore the larger buildings. Apart from the frescoes and the masaics, the monastery has in its possession a large number of unique portable icons, manuscripts and religious objects. EUCOSMIA is producing and distributing two series of products: food, drincs and care products. EUCOSMIA has also presence in popular Social Media such as Facebook, Instagram as well as has a YouTube channel.
Good practice 9: Kloesterreich – Feel Free to Step Away from your Daily Routines, Austria
The association Kloesterreich was established in Austria and has members in five European countries. Currently it includes altogether 22 monasteries from Austria, one from Germany, one from Switzerland, one from Hungary and two from the Czech Republic. Convents and monasteries offer room for body, spirit and soul. They share their treasures of faith, prayer and their rich cultural heritage with the coming interested people and pilgrims.
Good practice 10: Authentic Monastic Products with a Strong Brand – Kremikovtsi Monastery “St. George the Victorious” in Bulgaria
Kremikovtsi Monastery “St. George the Victorious” is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery founded during the Second Bulgarian Empire (12th–14th century) and re-established in 1493 by a local Bulgarian noble, the monastery includes two churches. Of these, the older medieval church is notable for its highly regarded 15th-century frescoes. Nowadays, Kremikovski Monastery is a functional one. Under а clever guidance, the monastery develops in many directions: production, managing a monastery shop, online sales and distribution, social activities and active investments for reconstruction.
Soon, we will publish the next 10 good practices collected in SKIVRE project.
Monastic heritage represents an important part of European heritage, shared by all European member states mainly in their rural areas. In the past times, monasteries served not only the transmission of Christian faith. They were economic hot spots for the exchange of goods and services.
Nowadays, the production of monastic products is an enormous economic chance for many monasteries to gain income – in order to survive, to develop and to preserve their cultural heritage.
Many monasteries produce variable products using their own recipes based on centuries-old traditions – e.g. handcrafted personal care products as soaps and lotions, textiles, natural food as bread, marmalade, liquors, beer, wine, milk, meat products, and religious articles as well.
Many of the monasteries with own production are creating employment for local people in rural areas. They are establishing collaboration with local production companies as well. Furthermore, they contribute to tourism industry and economic development in their region.
The knowledge of the production of these products is part of the EU’s intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, the SKIVRE project is dedicated to a collection of good practices and creating teaching modules for all monasteries, who want to develop their economic activity and to establish good trading relationships with other monasteries and other stakeholders.
Till now, under the guidance of INI-Novation Bulgaria OOD, 10 learning modules were created and 31 good practices were collected from Germany, Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Bulgaria and Austria. All SKIVRE partners were contributing with generation of learning content, establishing good relationships with different monasteries in their own countries.
All modules and good practices will be uploaded on a special web-platform created by our Greek partner GUNET. The platform is under development at the moment and will be available very soon.
With all project activities, SKIVRE contributes to “Heritage Sharing” – the theme of the “European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018” by developing a training scheme for the production and marketing of high quality handmade products of European monasteries.
INI-Novation GmbH invests in a Greek startup company
INI-Novation GmbH in Mühltal (Germany) decided to invest in the foundation of a startup company with technologies that transform the living and living environment of older adults into a “digital coach”. The aim of the Greek start-up “CAPTAIN COACH” is to support an independent life for older people in their home environment by motivating them to use innovative technologies for new ways of care and support. A positive impact for the health systems is that nursing staff and medical specialists are empowered to anonymously collect and use medical as well as emotion and behaviour-related data using such technologies.
The management and innovation consultancy company INI-Novation GmbH, which specializes in innovation management, is a consortium partner in the “CAPTAIN” project (https://www.captain-eu.org) funded by the EU program Horizon 2020, in which approaches for the simplified use of innovative care technologies were developed. For the successful operation of these so-called eCare systems, the startup CAPTAIN COACH uses state-of-the-art technologies that were developed as ubiquitous assistants for older adults to compensate for physical impairments and memory disorders during their everyday activities. For this purpose, CAPTAIN COACH offers systems consisting of micro projectors and sensors for detecting the presence and activities of the user. The user sets so-called “smart goals” through speech or gesture. An example of such an intelligent target formulation is: “I would like to call relatives”. In a defined period of time (e.g. once a day or per week), the user can then carry out his own activities, monitor them himself and, if necessary, improve or redefine his goals. The system intelligently regulates the sequence of motivating coaching goals and messages. CAPTAIN COACH transforms users’ living environments into an empowering space that offers interaction, care and support for an independent life with mental and social wellbeing.
Demographic change and social relevance of the startup
Demographic change has reached Europe. The prospect of an elderlies grows from year to year. The population is aging increasingly due to falling birth rates and increasing life expectancy. This advancing aging of society means that the number of patients with chronic diseases, multi-morbidity and the resulting functional restrictions will continue to increase. This changes the qualitative need for medical support and care. In rural areas in particular, it can be observed that an ever-smaller number of doctors is confronted with a steadily growing number of (older) patients. In addition, there is a drastic shortage of nursing staff.
This opening pair of scissors can be countered by using innovative technologies in order to be able to care for the carers and carers in their home environment by trained assistants. “With our investment we want to contribute to closing the gap between the medical care needed and the caretakers in order to significantly increase the quality of life and life expectancy of older adults”, explains Dr. Wolfgang Kniejski, the Managing Director of INI-Novation GmbH.
CAPTAIN COACH addresses many different target groups in the population
Angela Ivanova (INI-Novation GmbH)
Angela Ivanova is responsible for the business development of INI-Novation GmbH and also for the start-up CAPTAIN COACH: “The combination of innovative technologies and personal care in the home environment makes it possible for older adults to live independently in a familiar home over a longer period of time, the hospitalization rate is reduced, and the quality of life can be maintained or even improved.”
Furthermore, so called “family carers”, the care organisations and the insurance companies are relieved, since in many cases only one-off support and no full care is required.
“This is positively impacting our society; CAPTAIN COACH brings less stress to the family, increases support in care, saves time, effort and costs.”
Invest and continue a successful collaboration
With a view to real sustainability, the ambitious goal is to establish this technology as a leading innovative method in home care. For this purpose, it is also planned that INI-Novation GmbH will not only invest, but also develop national and international partnerships to promote the spread and use of coaching technologies.
Synergies are achieved through appropriate cooperation with important networks, associations and institutions in relevant areas. These measures aim at the long-term sustainability of the partnership and at mechanisms to attract new interest groups and to bind key actors to the initiative.
The CAPTAIN product offers personalized coaching through new forms of accessible interaction and SMART target solutions that are seamlessly integrated into existing daily activities in the fastest and most efficient way.
Background information
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
INI-Novation GmbH offers leading expertise in supporting innovative business developments and innovation management. INI-Novation is a specialist in technology transfer with practical experience in the areas of innovation financing, innovation procurement for SMEs and in the development and implementation of relevant training events.
INI-Novation GmbH as work package leader for commercial exploitation of CAPTAIN services established liaisons with the so-called Knowledge Innovation Centers (“KICs”) of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (“EIT”), namely with EIT Digital and EIT Health.
The core collaborative activities targeted meetings with decision makers of public health funds and insurance companies to receive feed-back on market positioning for the innovative service to be offered by CAPTAIN. Pathways to market access for care innovations are depending on acceptance for reimbursement by payers. Early interaction, engagement and building of networks with payers are important key success innovation management factors to positioning high-quality innovation portfolios.
Due to the importance of payers it was also considered worthwhile by INI-Novation, EIT Digital and EIT Health to extend and increase the grade of involving stakeholders from the reimbursement institutions in a specially organised matchmaking event, where innovative care solutions were introduced to representative stakeholders from reimbursement institutions at the location of the University of Heidelberg on October 22nd, 2019.
It was addressed in the event that nowadays health insurers are just payers of healthcare expenditures. Thanks to innovative technologies, such as CAPTAIN’s elderly coaching solutions, they have an now opportunity to become partners for their customers, partners in maintaining their customers’ living circumstances. For insurers’ business this means that they may get closer to customers and offer more values. This leads to values that CAPTAIN will add: usefulness and effectiveness of personalized recommendations, combined with the validation of non-obtrusive technology for physical, cognitive, social and mental well-being.
On October 2, the first multiplier event of CreatINNES “Entrepreneurship and Creativity – One Plus One Is More Than Two” was kicked-off as an international open seminar. It was organized by three organizations – our Hungarian partner Teleberry , Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Central European University Innovation Lab 2019, at the CEU Nádor Street building.
The purpose of the event was to enhance dialogue between creative and cultural industries, digital technology companies and financial investors, and to foster entrepreneurial skills in the creative and cultural industries. Accordingly, the target audience of the event were primarily companies and young freelancers working in the creative and cultural industries, CCI students, and representatives of technology businesses that value creativity.
The third CreatINNES project meeting went absolutely great hosted by our Hungarian partner Teleberry in Budapest on October the 1st 2019.
Progress work on the training modules
Mr. Petyo Budakov from Budakov Films (Bulgaria) reported the progress of our work in the creation of our two training programs “Entrepreneurship for CCI freelancers and startups” and “Creative thinking for Innovation”. We had efficient discussions on the modules development process showing the partners’ engagement and sincere dedication on the project work.
Multiplier events
Another important topic were the Multiplier events of CreatINNES. The main focus was put on our first multiplier event in Budapest, on which all partners participated as guests. Our Hungarian partners from Teleberry have put a lot of inspiration and good organization in it, and together with Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Central European University Innovation Lab 2019 created successful event with a lot of positive outcomes and satisfied participants.
Our Macedonian partner MEDF was leading our discussion and planning actions related to the two future multiplier events in Skopje (May 2020) and in Germany (June 2020).
Testing phase of CreatINNES is upcoming
We also discussed the future tasks in testing the modules and CreatINNES platform building. The goal is our future platform to be innovative and user-friendly for our future users.
Many administrative issues were resolved and important deadlines were set up by the leading partners INI-Novation GmbH. And one of the most important outcome form our meeting in Budapest is our team became stronger. Lets keep it like this!
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