ELINCLUS cluster, represented by its management entity APTE is a partner in BRIDGE project financed by COSME program of the European Commission under the call ”Cluster Go International”.

BRIDGE stands for Building Relations to go International for Data-Driven Growing Enterprises.

The project aims to help start-ups and SMEs in their internationalization process beyond Europe. The proposition is focused on strengthening approach on third markets and providing more professional services.

MAIN OBJECTIVES:

• to intensify clusters and network collaboration across borders
• to share knowledge and expertise of the Data-Driven Industry (specially focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain) and their potential application in different market domains (such as e-health, financial services, etc.)
• to increase competitiveness of SMEs
• to gain international visibility of SMEs
• to build a cross-cluster profile that will be reliable, convincing and trustworthy

DURATION OF THE PROJECT:

• 20 months
• starting: 01/09/2020

BUDGET:

The budget of the project is EUR 222 206.90

PARTNERS:

TORINO WIRELESS – lead partner

BWCON GMBH (bwcon GmbH)

ASSOCIATIA PENTRU PROMOVAREA TEHNOLOGIEI ELECTRONICE (APTE)

FOUNDATION CLUSTER INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TEHNOLOGIES (ICT CLUSTER)

BRIDGE project aims to establish a European Strategic Clusters Partnership (ESCP) to promote clusters internationalization support by developing a joint international strategy aimed at supporting deep tech start-ups and SMEs from the Data-Driven industry that have competences, expertise and technological solutions that process, analyze, valorize (extract value from) and protect data, using Artificial intelligence, blockchain and future emerging data-driven technologies, in their internationalization process beyond Europe, and to intensify clusters and network collaboration across borders.

BRIDGE has a cross-sectoral approach for the development and adoption of its internationalization strategy. In fact, the internationalization strategy will be developed and co-designed with BRIDGE clusters and their start-ups and SMEs following two main goals:

1. To share knowledge and expertise about the state-of-the-art of the Data-Driven Industry with specific focus on AI and Blockchain technologies and their potential application in different market domains. Up to now, 4 market domains have already been identified (e-health, financial services, industrial 4.0 and sustainable mobility), the project activities will allow to better analyzed them and also evaluate other potential markets, according to the companies and the countries.
2. To build a portfolio of competitive services to support start-ups and SMEs working in the above-mentioned areas and then define which of these services will be the best to support the companies in their internationalization towards three selected extra-EU countries, chosen on the basis of start-ups and SMEs preference, market segment potentialities, and the possibility to activate concrete collaboration with partners to support the internationalization. A first list of potential countries has been initiated, including the United States of America, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Latin America.

By internationalizing the clusters network and the initiatives portfolio, we aim to contribute to the EU data economy by generating new opportunities for the European start-ups and SMEs.