Towards a university Enterprise alliance in Jordan.

Date: 5-7/4/2016

Venue: Porto University

 

TEJ partners along with nominated students participated in the study visit to the University of Porto from April 5^th to April 7^th, 2016.

On the first day Prof. Walid Salameh opened the first session and started his speech with an overview about the project as well as key introductory inputs and schemes of Entrepreneurship good practices. Prof. Salameh also spoke briefly about concentrating on knowledge transfer and the project results on national level.

Tuesday 5^th April, 2016 was dedicated for student-based entrepreneurship and consisted of 5 presentations started with an overview about Porto University and a brief about its 3rd mission: Technology transfer presented by Andre Fernands.

After that Ms. Ana Mato; from the International Relations Office briefly presented the experience of Porto University in ERASMUS+ program and introduced the relations and benefits of involving youth in the program.

 

A presentation about CEdUP (Entrepreneurship Club of the University of Porto) showed that the club aims to promote entrepreneurship within the community of University of Porto as an assembly for initiatives and people in addition to creating synergies by contributing to more efficient ecosystem.

 

Nuno Machado, the CEO of Startup Buzz, presented "BUZZ" as the first student-based startup accelerator in Portugal explaining the main BUZZ actions which are:

• BUZZ Sessions that help entrepreneurs building and consolidating their own startups;
• Events: organizing events in order to generate value for the startups and the university students.

Douglas Thompson, SPI, talked about Horizon 2020 that is open to everyone, with a simple structure that reduces red tape and time so participants can focus on what is really important. This approach makes sure new projects get off the ground quickly – and achieve results faster. Horizon 2020 is helping to achieve connecting research directly to innovation with its emphasis on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges.

Finally; Building Global Innovators "BGI" has been presented by BGI team, in which they present their 6-years experiment as a Technology Transfer

Wednesday 6^th April, 2016

4 important topics were covered in the presentation of Aude Gabrielsen regarding technology-based entrepreneurship and intellectual property in universities starting with Key-concepts of technology-based entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Technology Transfer and Support to entrepreneurship.

After that Business Ignition Program was presented by Fátima Ramalho, U.Porto Innovation, which highlighted how BIP is a hands-on program that immerses technologies (teams) by having them test their business model outside of the research lab.

Participants also had the chance to be introduced to IUP25K which is an initiative launched in 2010 through Entrepreneurship club (CEDUP) and University of Porto innovation office (UPIN). The Startup Case Competition open to all students of the University of Porto. As such, groups of contestants develop a business plan for the idea they had in response to a given challenge. These groups are accompanied during the competition by mentors from diverse areas of expertise, with the ultimate goal of preparing the idea to be presented to a jury which will decide the winner.

The participants were briefed on (Kinematix Company) as well, one of the successful business projects that promoted by University of Porto which is a body dynamics company offering healthcare and fitness products.

After that all participants visited the science and technology park of University of Porto UPTEC whereas they got an idea about the structure of the University of Porto dedicated to incubate startups and host national and international Business Innovation, supporting an effective knowledge and technology transfer between academia and markets.

Thursday 7^th April, 2016 was dedicated to visit business incubators as Venture Catalyst hosted by Abyssal and the National Association for young Entrepreneurs (ANJE).

Venture Catalysts focuses on solving real market needs by evaluating the true potential of the technology for the development of products/services that support new ventures with high potential at the global scale.

While ANJE aims to bring together young Portuguese entrepreneurs with a view to fulfill the common interests and their professional development, particularly in terms of training and development.