Our Partners

The University of Sheffield is among the top ten leading UK research-intensive universities, according to the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). It ranked 18th of top 50 HES organisations in FP7 signed grant agreements in terms of counts of participations for the period 2007-20121 and was included among the top 50 participants to FP7-ICT calls2. It was named University of Year in 2011 by the Times Higher Education Supplement. Forty-one out of the University's 49 submissions had 50% or more of their work assessed as 4* and 3* in the rigorous 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). These grades are only awarded to departments who are recognised as world leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour.

Rob Wapshott

Robert is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at The University of Sheffield where his research focuses primarily on how small businesses cope with the challenges of employing staff alongside work exploring the role of regulation in start-up firms and how entrepreneurship is discussed in society. A University Senate Award Winner for learning and teaching, Robert has a wide range of relevant educational experience in the EU and also the UAE.

In addition to his role at The University of Sheffield, Robert is a director of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and is an Editorial Advisory Board member for the leading entrepreneurship research publication, the International Small Business Journal. More widely, he works with a range of organsations and practitioners to meet the challenges they face.

Tim Vorley

Tim is an experienced mentor and has wide ranging experience of working with entrepreneurs and SMEs. He has particular strength in fostering entrepreneurial decision making and developing entrepreneurial strategy. At the University of Sheffield Tim primarily teaches entrepreneurship at postgraduate level, working on a range of modules including ‘Entrepreneurial Venture Creation’ and ‘Corporate Intrapreneurship’.

At the University of Sheffield Tim is a research academic who has studied entrepreneurship in a range of market, including the UK, Ireland, Malaysia, and the Balkans.

Hub Innovazione Trentino (HIT) is a non-profit corporate consortium with limited liability, whose stakeholders are University of Trento, Bruno Kessler Foundation, Edmund Mach Foundation and Trentino Sviluppo S.p.A. and whose assets are contributed by the Autonomous Province of Trento and by the stakeholders themselves. The scope of HIT is to promote and enhance research results and innovation of the Trentino region in order to foster local business development by joining forces with all local actors in the innovation field. As an innovation catalyser and within its technology transfer activities, HIT aims at: scouting of innovation opportunities, at national, European and international level, for its stakeholders and, indirectly, for the territory of the Autonomous Province of Trento within the smart specialization thematic fields; promoting the regional territory as one of the major European research, innovation and high education hubs; enabling the transformation of Trentino into a competitive and dynamic knowledge economy.

Both directly and indirectly, throughout its stakeholders, HIT has a strong expertise in: transforming research into innovative products and services; stimulating the creation of research-based start-ups and favouring technology transfers to established companies supporting research through specific project and pilot initiatives aimed at exploring new research directions and boosting the collaboration among local research actors, from both public and private sectors; research internationalisation; supporting development and delivery of high-quality courses through educational programmes fostering innovation and entrepreneurial talent embodied in students and organized and running in collaboration with prestigious European Universities.

Milena Bigatto

Milena is Project Manager and ecosystem developer in the New Business Creation Unit since 2013. She is involved in project to foster growth and innovation in the economic ecosystem and entrepreneurial and innovation culture at high school, university entrepreneurial community. She has been involved in European projects since 2004 during masters’ courses in international relations,and PhD programme in European and comparative policy as internal evaluator, administrative support, communication and dissemination support, education manager, researcher.
She has been responsible for a local office of a National Research Centre on Criminology and she had experience as a director assistant in an Italian publishing house sector leader in education field and Vice rector (International relations) assistant at the Trento University.

Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, founded in 1742 with around 37,000 students, is one of Germany’s largest universities. Its mission statement “Advance through Networks” reflects its close collaboration within its diverse range of interdisciplinary courses. It is a member of the German Universities of Excellence initiative and with 656 Professorships across 5 faculties also has collaborative research centres with the DFG (German Research Foundation), Max Planck and the Fraunhofer Institutes. The region also has a strong presence of ICT, computer, electronic, electrical, automotive, printing, fabrication and other high-tech manufacturing industries.

The Chair of Information Systems – Innovation & Value Creation led by Prof. Dr. Kathrin Möslein is a part of WIN – The Institute of Information Systems at the University. It has conducted extensive research on open innovation, innovation strategy and designed and implemented innovation systems. As a part of WIN, the Chair also offers the Master of Science in International Information Systems as one of the University’s flagship International programs.

Thus, the vast research experience of the University, especially with its focus on innovation research and international education based on ICT and its proximity to German ICT start-ups and other firms bring forward competencies essential to contribute to both research and implementation tasks of the project.

Aida Boukhris

Aida Boukhris is a research associate at the chair of Information Systems I at the University Friedrich-Alexander Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Before she started her PhD, she has been working as embedded systems engineer for two years and a half within an electronics development company specialized in motors control. She also has a master in Innovation Management after completing her thesis within the institute Fraunhofer IMW in Leipzig, investigating the relationship between business model innovation and high-growth firms. Her research interests are focused on the design of product-service systems within the context of the Internet of Things, the integration of users within the design of such systems through prototyping, and the interactions involved within IoT systems and how can these be enhanced.

Hari Suman Naik

Hari Suman Naik is a post graduate from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore with a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM/MBA) focussing on strategy and product management. He also is a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

He has worked in a variety of organizations and in diverse fields. He has been a consultant at Cognizant Business Consulting in the area of Business Process Management and has interned as a Product Manager at Yahoo. Prior to his MBA, he was an Applications Developer at Computer Associates Technologies.

As an engineer, he researched energy networks at ENEA, Rome and researched Ad-hoc networks at Seoul National University, S. Korea.

The University of Almeria (UAL) is a research-education oriented public university, founded in 1993. It has currently 30 degrees available, counting with 681 professors. Today it has more than 12000 students, including 600 doctorate students. A total of 13 departments (136 research groups) are devoted to research and training. In addition to the research work of the departments, the UAL has 6 research institutes.

The links with the business world operate through the Research Results Transfer Office (OTRI) and the collaboration on international projects, as well as seeking resources and partners, is managed through the European and International Projects Office (OPI).

The College of Business and Economics hosts 3.000 students every year and offers a wide variety of training opportunities both at the undergraduate (6 degrees), master (4 masters) and doctoral level (2 PhD Programs). Professors from the College of Business and Economics develop an intensive role in other colleges and Schools such as the Polytechnic School of Engineering where they assist students in the development of their final degree/master theses, providing support for the transformation of technical projects into business plans.

Miguel Pérez-Valls

Miguel is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Almería in Spain. He has wide experience in coaching for the identification of opportunities, skills development and organizational design solutions. He teaches a wide variety of courses on strategy, management and human resources. His research is oriented towards providing organizational solutions to face the challenge of sustainability.

SEERC is an overseas research center of the University of Sheffield, established as a non-profit legal entity in Thessaloniki, Greece. The center was founded by City College, the University's International Faculty, in 2004. It is conducting multidisciplinary research in the fields of Enterprise, Innovation & Development, Information & Communication Technologies, and Society & Human Development. The Center cooperates with the International Faculty in informing teaching and learning through research and innovation. Though its “Innovation Policy and Support” research cluster, SEERC is focusing on bringing together academic research and entrepreneurship and fostering innovation at the local and regional levels. The center is actively engaged with the start-up ecosystem of the region and supports bringing the gap between financiers and the start-up community through brokerage activities and policy relevant research. SEERC is a research center of CITY College, International Faculty of the University of Sheffield in Thessaloniki, Greece (CITY College is a truly international faculty offering business courses in 3 EU countries (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania) and 4 non-EU countries (Serbia, Ukraine, Turkey and Albania)). Mobilization of the management students plus a big number of alumni will be key for the success of the project. Further access to Business schools all over Europe and beyond will be provided through the Association of MBAs (AMBA) that SEERC participates through its mother institution CITY College. AMBA has in its membership 199 schools in over 70 countries.

Mr. Nikos Zaharis

Mr. Nikos Zaharis is the Director of South East European Research Center. He has more than 20 years experience as a consultant and manager working for industrial as well as public sector organizations on issues ranging from management of innovation to environmental management, economic and regional development in Greece and in a series of eastern European countries. His research interests lie with innovation policy, regional development and entrepreneurship. He is currently involved in the EUHUB initiative and the ICT2B project which aims at transforming European funded ICT research into investment opportunities as well as the VIBE porjects which aims at creating a platform for bringing together start-ups and VCs in the Balkans.

Professor Panayiotis Ketikidis

Professor Panayiotis Ketikidis has over 25 years of experience in management, education, research, and competitive research funding with various networks established as a result of this experience. Professor Ketikidis is the Chief Editor of the International Journal of Innovation & Regional Development (IJIRD) and Founder of the International Conference for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development (ICEIRD). Also he is the President of the Greek Computer Society (EPY) - Macedonia-Thrace chapter (elected 2008-2010; 2010-2012;2012-2014); Member of the Administration Board of the Innovation Zone of Thessaloniki and a Member of the Administration Board - Center for the support of female employment and entrepreneurship ERGANI (2006-present). He was for many years an Expert (reviewer) of DG XIII (Telecommunications, Information Industries and Innovation) of the European Commission, and has also been involved in many European Information Technology projects funded by the European Commission (1992 -current).

Dr. Dimitrios V. Nikolaidis

Dr. Dimitrios V. Nikolaidis is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing and as of 2010 he is the Head of the Business Administration and Economics Department. He has been teaching at CITY College since 2001, in undergraduate, postgraduate and executive levels. He has studied at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA, where he received a master’s and doctoral degrees in managing leisure and service organizations. Along with his teaching in subjects such as Innovation and New Product Development, Marketing and Management of Services, and Public Relations Strategies, he has published a number of articles in national and international journals. Dr. Nikolaidis have been invited as a guest lecturer or keynote speaker in more than 100 events and seminars, discussing topics of managing service organizations, public relations and communication strategies, and innovation and development of new products. He has also been involved with training seminars and consulting for various companies.

Mr. Dimitris Bibikas

Mr. Dimitris Bibikas is a Researcher and PhD Candidate at SEERC. He holds a BSc in Mathematics of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a Masters in Information Systems and a Masters in Business Administration, both from the University of Macedonia, Greece. His research interests include the phenomenon of social tools usage at work. He has extensive experience in coordinating R&D projects awarded by the European Commission, the Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology, and the Greek Information Society Program. He has been involved into various FP6/FP7, CIP PSP and Transnational Cooperation projects.

The University of Twente is where talent can best realize its full potential. Students and staff are the key. Together, 3,300 scientists and professionals carry out ground-breaking research, bring about socially relevant innovation, and provide inspiring teaching for more than 9,000 students. To us, entrepreneurship comes as second nature. The campus is home to around 100 businesses, including student-run businesses. The University of Twente has also generated more than 700 successful spin-off companies. The university's business park, Kennispark Twente, encourages and assists entrepreneurs to start new companies. But there's so much more than that happening on our wonderful, green campus. Our sports and cultural facilities are unique and we host events such as the world's largest student think tank, Create Tomorrow. Another legend of the Twente campus is the Netherlands' largest student sports event, the Batavieren Race. The campus is a hive of activity - a truly inspirational place to be!

Rainer Harms

Rainer is an experienced academic who covers a teaching, research, and service in the field of entrepreneurship. His key area of interest are the entrepreneurial process, and technology entrepreneurship. At the University Twente, Rainer teaches entrepreneurship at both the Bachelor and the Master level. For example, the Bachelor Module on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” is based on the Lean Startup Methodology. The Module provides results for students and entrepreneurs.

The University of Economics in Katowice was founded in 1937 and is the biggest and oldest business school in the region, one of the top universities in Poland. Each year, over 17,000 Polish and international students follow our degree programs at the Bachelor, Master, Doctoral and Post-diploma levels. University’s excellence is confirmed by full state accreditation in education as well as by top ranks of the faculties within the national assessment system of research institutions. According to the yearly Newsweek rankings related to graduates’ careers, the University is one of the most successful Polish higher education institutions. Drawing on its long history and traditions, our university continues to grow and evolve implementing new ideas and diversification in its education offer as well as participating in various research and learning projects. Moreover, the University is expanding its infrastructure with state of the art facilities like Center for New Information Technologies open to the public in 2014 or Scientific Information Center and Academic Library open to the public in 2012.

Wojciech Czakon

Wojciech is an experienced consultant and lecturer working with SMEs. His particular focus is on the managerial toolbox, including information and control systems, strategy development and implementation. At the University of Economics in Katowice he teaches a wide range of topics, ranging from "Budgeting" through "Principles of Management" to "Alliances, Mergers & Acquisitions".

YES – the European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, founded in 1988, is an independent organisation of young entrepreneurs for the promotion of European entrepreneurship. Our mission is to engage governments and EU policy makers to get them to understand and embrace the value of entrepreneurship, to ensure that the educational system promotes entrepreneurship at all levels, to create a pan-European network that connects young entrepreneurs, stimulate exchanges and network activity them. YES members include the major national associations of young entrepreneurs from the vast majority of the EU Member States as well as from other European. YES, has the honor to represent the EU to international organizations like the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance.

UnternehmerTUM is the center for innovation and business creation at Technische Universität München (TUM). Founded in 2002 as strategic component of "TUM. The Entrepreneurial University", UnternehmerTUM is one of the leading university-based centers for innovation and business creation in Europe with more than 50 employees, over 1,000 participants attending lectures, seminars and programs every year, as well as 50 innovation and start-up projects.

As an affiliated institute of TUM, UnternehmerTUM collaborates closely with the university. A strong connection is maintained in particular with the Chair of Entrepreneurship (Prof. Patzelt) and the TUM School of Education – the first faculty in Germany to be dedicated entirely to initial and further training of teachers in the subjects of mathematics, computer studies, science and technology (the so-called MINT subjects).

UnternehmerTUM inspires students, academics and professionals, promoting entrepreneurial thought and action and supporting companies and start-ups in making the most of the challenges of our times so as to generate successful new business. The center actively contributes to tackling social challenges, thereby reinforcing future sustainability and applies a systematic process to identify, develop and implement entrepreneurial opportunities. The UnternehmerTUM fund provides capital for cutting-edge technology start-ups with international market potential.

UnternehmerTUM provides a practically oriented training in the field of entrepreneurship education. It promotes initiative, creativity, courage and responsibility, combining training with the initiation of innovation and start-up projects. The center identifies and evaluates promising technologies at the university and helps students and scientists to realize their projects. Through UnternehmerTUM start-up teams have access to a strong network of entrepreneurial talent, academics, experts and investors.

Dominik Böhler

Dominik Böhler is manager “Lectures & Seminars” at UnternehmerTUM, the center for innovation and entrepreneurship at TU Munich. He is responsible for the education of students at and PhD students, as well as lecturing. He holds a diploma in business administration, with a major in entrepreneurship, and a PhD in information systems. During his studies he was self-employed as an IT consultant.

Franziska Heyde

Franziska Heyde works as an external trainer for UnternehmerTUM "Lectures & Seminars". As a business graduate, she specialized in innovation management and is also certified as a trainer in adult education. Besides her work at UnternehmerTUM she is a co-founder of the Eco Retreat Center „Greenstones“ in Sweden and coaches Social Entrepreneurs during their start-up phase.

Philip Schneider

Philip Schneider works at UnternehmerTUM, the center for innovation and entrepreneurship at TU Munich. Philip is responsible for building an interdisciplinary talent program focused on technology, called Tech Talents. In that function he hosts student Hack-a-thon and Make-a-thon events -bringing together hackers, designers and makers. He graduated with a master degree in Entrepreneurship from the Rotterdam School of Management. After his studies, he tried building his own startups and worked as a consultant.

Europe Unlimited (EUN) (www.e-unlimited.com) provides event and online matching platforms between emerging innovative companies, investors and partners across Europe and its regions, sectors and stages, presenting hundreds of high-tech entrepreneurial companies in many venture fora and partnering events across Europe to venture capital and corporate investors and partners to support innovation management of SMEs and to improve their investor-readiness and access to finance and markets. Europe Unlimited has gradually developed its activities since 1998 and now has extensive capabilities, networks, competencies, databases, client relations allowing it to mobilize investors and innovative entrepreneurs across Europe through investment matching events and investment readiness programs.

Europe Unlimited runs the European Venture Contest, the International Venture Club and the European Tech Tour, which recently joined up in strategic alliance.

The core activities of Europe Unlimited are international investment events where innovative entrepreneurs present to, and meet with venture investors and corporate partners. These events are hosted by development agencies and clusters in association with strong local partners fostering investment, innovation and entrepreneurship. Today our group, including Tech Tour and the International Venture Club, organizes 25 international events where 1,000 selected entrepreneurs meet with venture capital investors and corporate partners. Our group with offices in Brussels and Geneva, and soon a new location, has the ambition to become the number one community platform facilitating world-class innovative entrepreneurship and investment.

Myrna Rodríguez-Hausséguy

Myrna was born in Chihuahua (Mexico). She studied and worked in the USA, Canada and Germany before moving to Brussels to pursue a career in international business networking. She speaks Spanish, English and French fluently as well as intermediate German. She holds a B.A. in Organisational Communication and a M.A. in International Relations from Université Laval in Québec, Canada. In addition, she has a wide range of professional experience covering multinational corporations such as Johnson & Johnson and EPT Management as well as research institutions like the Institut Québécois des Hautes Études Internationales and the Economic Mission of Mexico to the EU. At Europe Unlimited, she manages the team that executes projects focused on ICT and related investment forums. Her experience in such projects ranges from policy analysis to monitoring of industry trends in Europe.

i4G - Incubation for Growth is a Greek-based Technology Incubator managing also a seed investment fund for tech and science startups. It is home to a vibrant community of more than 120 people, designed to create opportunities, to share knowledge and expertise, offer cross-sector business opportunities and inspire them to achieve new levels of success.