Jihane Chahla QOOT Cluster manager participated in a 5-day benchmarking visit and training program organized by France Clusters and their partner Ceipiemonte in Italy – part of the NEXT SOCIETY program to promote and internationalize clusters in the Mediterranean region.
Clusters in South Mediterranean Region
During the five days, Chahla had the opportunity to meet and network with other cluster organizations and business networks in Italy and other South-Mediterranean countries. Through this trip, she brought to the QOOT Cluster the capacity to enhance, learn, exchange experiences, and potentially collaborate with other clusters from different countries, while promoting it among the cluster network from South Med and EU countries.
Chahla was joined by 7 other EU-Med cluster representatives including Numeric Cluster, MDC, Agrinova and C2TM from Morocco; innoventures and Borg el arab from Egypt, and North-west olive oil cluster from Tunisia. She also had the opportunity to meet with speakers and researchers from the University of Torino to share success case histories on project development with the industries and fundraising as well as had the opportunity to pitch the QOOT Cluster to other clusters for potential collaborations.
Training program
Chahla attended the training program involving keynote speakers from different entities and sectors, sharing their experiences from challenges and opportunities. They included Massimo Gargini – Lecturer and Ceipiemonte Expert in business model and business plan, who discussed the different strategies and project financing opportunities to promote and assist SMEs by customizing assistance. Gargini explained the design of business models and key elements to include when setting a proposal to customers, users and stakeholders.
The speakers also included Davide Damosso – Manager of Environment Park and Clever, a Cleantech Innovation Cluster, and Giulia Razetti also from Environment Park, who shared the case study of the cleantech cluster on business model and service portfolio.
Several workshops were offered by Michele Mannucci – Ceipiemonte Expert in Digital Communication, promotion and social media, to discuss the global digital marketing and business promotion trends including how to effectively manage the B2B and B2C process on digital media, how to build a web and mobile communication campaign for specific countries, targets and customers, useful tips to design and manage an international company or organization portal and how to increase visibility, social networks and conversational marketing in different countries.
The Next society Benchmarking Visits & Training
Benchmarking visits are one-week inspiration and learning tours in Europe designed to acquire new methods and tools with priority topics identified during the diagnoses. 4 inspiration and learning tours designed by France Clusters – the coordinator of the Cluster Booster Track, are planned between 2018 and 2020.
These 5-day tours combine training sessions and benchmarking visits and are hosted by regional agencies supporting the internationalization of enterprises in Catalonia (Spain), Wallonia (Belgium), Region SUD Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (France) and Piedmont (Italy). Each cluster manager can participate in 2 out of the 4 tours, according to their priority topics, so as to improve their practices and share experiences and potential business and innovation opportunities.
Training sessions involve cluster managers and cluster management experts who share their methodologies and tools and work on practical cases to foster exchanges and cooperation between participants. Benchmarking visits explore examples of successful cluster-related practices and projects in situ, in line with the topics addressed by the training sessions.
Launched by ANIMA Investment Network, THE NEXT SOCIETY initiated a four-year action plan (2017-2020), co-funded by the European Union up to 90% for a global amount of EUR 7.8 million, which impacts 4 levels of the innovation ecosystem: Improve policy frameworks, Foster startup successes, Promote and internationalize clusters, and Accelerate technology transfer towards the enterprise. The exclusive partner in Lebanon of THE NEXT SOCIETY is Berytech – co-founders of the QOOT Cluster.
