Last week, a “Workshop on entrepreneurial discovery” was organized in Brasov, to generate a direct collaboration between the actors in the food value chain. The main purpose: create ideas for projects that will subsequently benefit from funding through relevant regional or European programs. At the invitation of Iceberg and Highclere Consulting (HCC) about 30 people responded on January 15, 2020: farmers, processors, distributors, traders, HoReCa – startups, innovators, researchers, experts and representatives of authorities and representatives of small producers / NGOs that support small farmers.

“It is important for the community of Brasov to create a habit of real dialogue, a functional platform for collaboration and cocreating, for a positive impact in the food sector in the area. We are very interested in contributing to facilitating such a process and sharing our experience, as well as the examples of good practices we see in other parts of Europe, ”said Raluca Barbu, HCC representative. “It is obvious that momentum has also been created now for Brasov gastronomy and it is vital for all of us to mobilize and mobilize as many relevant actors as possible, especially since 2020 we are directly involved in Horizon 2020 European food research projects: FoodShift 2030 and Moving. “

The HCC team, as facilitator of partnerships for innovation and sustainability, stressed the importance of having a concrete need, before initiating the complex process of finding new ideas and solutions.

Innovation …

• … encourages and builds on partnerships, networks, exchange of information, collective information and sharing of new knowledge and ideas => better use of resources, creating synergies;

• … it is not just technology transfer;

• … is a response to a real need and to concrete challenges;

• … is a solution / idea that works in practice.

All these concepts were supported by several case studies from the two HCC projects, BIT and LIASION, namely the EURIC competition.

The themes of the projects analyzed in the working groups included the introduction of technology in the HORECA services, the innovative solution of the problem of food waste, the innovation in gastronomy-innovative recipes.

Starting from December 2019, the Cluster for Innovation and Technology as a Digital Innovation Center (DIH) in collaboration with the Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer – I4T within Iceberg, supported by HCC, the Metropolitan Agency of Brasov and the Business Center of Brasov – cattia , organizes 4 workshops in the fields of Industry 4.0, Food 4.0, Energy & Smart City and E-Health. The generated projects will be able to benefit from assistance to access financing through programs such as Know How Romania, Proof of Concept or Tech Transfer between 2020-2021, will be included in the projects portfolio of the Region for the financial year 2021-2027 or they will be able to be implemented directly as prototypes if they do not require consistent financial resources.