On 12.04.2022, an extremely exciting European project named Nomadland was kicked-off online. The project will tell stories about the young people (millennial and generation Z), about the identity and needs of rural area, about the support and helping each other.
The project is a voyage through different rural areas of Europe, exploring stories of the digital nomads, discovering young people in rural areas, believing in the potential of rural areas between different generationsand guiding youth workers on the same path.
The representatives of all partner organizations in the consortium of four European countries Slovenia, Croatia, Spain and Germany met online in high spirits and good mood. Under the leadership of ID20, our project coordinator from Slovenia, we laid the foundations and distributed our first tasks together.
We, at INI-Novation GmbH, are proud to be part of this great consortium. Stay tuned for more news and information about the project Nomadland.
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.
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.
Thessaloniki Active and Healthy Ageing Living Lab (Thess-AHALL), PAsteur Innovative Living Lab Of Nice (PAILLON 2020), LicaLab and ICT Usage Lab (Inria) participated in a workshop on “The impacts of living labs in agile development in the Active and Healthy Ageing domain”, organized by CAPTAIN H2020 project, France/Francophonie Living Labs, EnoLL(Health Expert Group) and hosted by Nively SAS and 27 Delvalle, held on Friday, 8 February 2018 in Nice.
The main objective of the workshop was to present core living lab projects, as well as, to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience among participants –stakeholders, living lab managers, and other interested parts- on agile methodologies, which are applied on concrete living labs, in their daily operational tasks from the requirements elicitation to product/service development. In an open discussion, all attendants had the opportunity to describe the impacts of the living labs in fulfilling the needs of companies for agile development in general but mainly in Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) domain, except for sharing their own experiences in any of the methods used in a Living Lab project.
It is known that many traditional project teams and companies run into trouble when they try to define all of the requirements up front. Agile development enables the practitioners to elicit detailed requirements up front, while then they can also do the same when they actually need the information. It is particularly true for project and products in the healthcare domain, which investigate new ICT approaches aiming at a proof of concept or MVP (Minimum Viable Product), investment in detailed requirements documents early in the project which could be wasted when the requirements inevitably change (pivot), should be avoided. Therefore, the methodologies used in living labs based on user engagement, continuous feedback or continuous data collection, etc. throughout the project’s or product’s life-cycle seem to efficiently support agile development.
After the completion of the presentations, the participating Living Lab representatives had the opportunity to run an effective discussion on the future actions and roadmap on agile development and the relevant living lab project methodologies. All participants expressed their satisfaction for the useful outcomes that emerged from the workshop, regarding the crucial role of living labs on the AHA domain and renewed their appointment for a “follow-up” meeting in the future,which will bring even more ideas and new perspectives for further development, new partnerships and exchange of know-how.
In December 2017, 14 European organizations from nine countries joined together in Captain, an H2020 PM-15 project operating in the eCare area (http://captain-eu.org/).
The CAPTAIN vision is to turn the homes of old adults into a gentle coach within an empowering space, providing interaction, guidance and help for independent live leading to physical, cognitive, mental and social well-being. CAPTAIN proposes a “transparent” technology designed as ubiquitous assistant for elderly compensating their physical and memory impairments during their activities of daily living.
To do so, CAPTAIN leverages on a few state of the art technologies such as “projected augmented reality”, real-time 3D sensing technologies, speech analysis, non-invasive physiological and emotional data analysis, and intelligent comprehension of the user’s behaviour and actions. The CAPTAIN project result will provide innovation on the eCare market related not only on technological but as well on a social level of the society.
INI-Novation GmbH is the business partner in the consortium, responsible for the exploitation strategy and activities of the project partners.
The next UNCAP project meeting was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, from the 26th to the 27th of June 2017.
25 partners get together in this beautiful summer city to discuss the wrap up the UNCAP activities and to look beyond into the future.
The project is entering its final phase, in which the most important goals фор the partners are to complete the commercialization strategy of of the new technology and to approve the first steps of its market entry.
INI-Novation as the business partner of the UNCAP project, presented the main important points from the business plan for discussion and as well the possible innovation transfer models that can pave the way for future exploitation activities.
The city of Veliko Tarnovo, a hotbed for cultural traditions & crafts production in north central Bulgaria, hosted the training session, organized by INI-Novation Bulgaria, as part of the International Tourism Fair “Cultural Tourism”.
This event proved to be a great success: representatives from municipalities, art organisations, tourism agencies and single start-ups showed a lot of interest in the presentations of EUROPETOUR partners Karin Drda-Kühn (Kultur und Arbeit e.V., Germany), Angela Ivanova (INI-Novation), Wolfgang Kniejski (INI-Novation), Lacramioara Beilic (Bucovina Tourism, Romania) and Antonio Kuzmanovski (Macedonian start-up “WheninX“).
THE MULTIPLIER EVENT
After an introduction about the vision of EUROPETOUR by Karin Drda-Kühn (Kultur und Arbeit e.V., Germany), Angela Ivanova (INI-Novation Bulgaria) presented the EUROPETOUR training modules and one of the main topics of interest for the Bulgarian tourism stakeholders and mainly startups in tourism: Positioning, branding, marketing of cultural tourism in rural areas and the importance of networking. Her presentation was built on so called case-based learning: By providing a best practice example surrounded by theoretical knowledge and practical exercises, a better understanding about the specifics of the topic was achieved.
After that, Lacramioara Beilic (Bucovina Tourism, Romania) presented the region of Bucovina as a best practice example and opportunity for collaboration between Bulgarian and Romanian stakeholders. She highlight her “vision for networking”, sharing what the Bucovina region did for addressing the specific needs of cultural travellers in a successful way.
Wolfgang Kniejski (INI-Novation Bulgaria) gave a deep overview of financing instruments with special emphasis on topics such as value generation chains in cultural tourism, business planning, sales and distribution, as well as market-oriented financing. Best practise examples were provided and many insides about how to build a successful project idea were discussed.
At the end, a best practice presentation about distribution policies from Macedonia complemented the event. Antonio Kuzmanovski, CEO of the Macedonian start-up “WheninX“, presented a service-driven technological solution for fostering cultural programmes for locals and visitors.
May 2016 started inspiring with a Nordic flair.The UNCAP Consortium gathered in Lund (Sweden) for a two days project meeting. The meeting was important for all technical partners because of the finalization of the UNCAP Box prototype. Even more, the IPR issues were coming into the agenda. INI-Novation is the responsible partner for the market take-up of the project’s results but also for providing solutions in the area of IPR and licensing.
In Lund, the attention of the consortium was on the technical implementation of the UNCAP Box. The whole team of technical experts, members of the consortium, attended the meeting. The discussion was quite intensive because of the importance to finalize the prototype. It has to be entered for a pilot testing in the second half of 2016.
At that period, all UNCAP pilots, consisting mainly of care centers, care homes and hospices from all over Europe, have to implement the UNCAP box in their activities and introduce the system to their patients and their relatives.
The technical team of UNCAP at the meeting in Lund
Then, the second part of the UNCAP project will start with analyzing the impact from different perspectives: care improvement, life style and financial benefits.
In this regard, the consortium discussed several items very relevant for the market uptake: marketing research – analysis and studies in the field of e-Health and e-Care about user behavior and user needs.
The INI-Novation team at the right discussing the further steps (Lund, 2016)
Angela Ivanova (INI) discussed the progress of the impact analysis on Business and Financial Models and presented INI’s progress report “Exploitation and market replication”.
One of the main discussed topics were the process chain analysis of the UNCAP products that INI has already identified in its analysis work. A snapshot of market research findings was presented and the criteria of user acceptance were discussed. The topic is directly related with the technical implementation of the UNCAP Box and is complementing the work of the technicians to set-up the UNCAP product at the very begging with the possible desired functions or possible user training.
After two intensive working days, our host and partner from Sweden has organized an intensive and interesting sightseeing in Lund. It is always wonderful when we have time in addition to the project meetings to enjoy also the place where we are!
UNCAP consortium in Lund
University building in Lund
INI-Novation’s team in front of a typical old-style Swedish building in Lund
A young girl by cell phone photographed of The smallest cathedral in the world, church of the Holy cross, Nin, Croatia
Being successful in cultural tourism needs training for cultural workers, tourism experts, business developers and representatives of public authorities. In urban areas there already are numerous examples for successful cooperation, but good practice in rural areas is rather rare. Specifically, training is needed in professionally using social media and online marketing of tourism services. Identifying the actual training needs is one of the objectives of EUROPETOUR and developing a detailed training program accordingly. EUROPETOUR will be implemented until 2018 in eight European regions, supported by the European ERASMUS+ programme.
First of all, the project partners aim at identifying the necessary steps for successful cultural tourism development in rural areas. In a second step, training modules for local stakeholders wishing to develop or foster their own skills are established, including guidelines for the use of social media as well as online marketing in cultural heritage, and cultural tourism. The guidelines will be available in seven European languages in order to get European outreach.
European travellers on their way to discover cultural heritage
Additionally, all project partners to EUROPETOUR have committed to developing networked, tangible offers and ready-made packages across Europe. In this way, travellers with a special interest in, say, castles and monasteries or creative travel, should end up with a tailor-made travel arrangement allowing them to explore the Italian region Marke, the Spanish region Cantabria or the German region of the Heilbronner Land in a similar way. Opportunities provided by social media as well as the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, are to be directly addressed. The goal is to generate income for cultural tourism stakeholders, to develop attractive packages for cultural travellers and to benefit from the best-practice examples demonstrated by the project partners across Europe.
Participating partners and cultural touristic networks
Kultur und Arbeit e.V. with the KIRA-network of Heilbronn-Franken region (coordinator), Germany
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