We spoke to a series of matchmaking event participants about their experiences of our events, the results of the connections made at the events and if they would recommend the events to others. Here, we speak to Skirmantė Baležentienė, Cluster Manager, Photovoltaics Technology Cluster, Lithuania:

"I have attended matchmaking events in Brussels spring 2018, Vilnius April 2022, Singapore October 2022 and Marrakech May 2023. 

All of the matchmaking events were intense, but nevertheless great as I really try to make the most out of the connections made later on. 

We’ve developed a quite strong partnership with the Spanish Packaging cluster - this spring we have placed a proposal with them being in the consortium. This achievement I would say was the biggest from my early matchmaking events, but the network is now established and as we are expanding our activities I often reach out to the connections for discussions or even occasionally input. There are also times the other party needs someone from Lithuania, not Photovoltaics related, they contact me for reference. So I think this is still a very good result.

 From Singapore, it is still an ongoing process, as it involves long-term partnership development. One of our SMEs gave feedback that they received a request for solar module technology development for a Singaporean company. We still have 2 partnerships in the negotiation phase for the export of Lithuanian production to the Asian market.

Marrakech, by far, has produced the most outcomes already since the visit. We've already had an extensive discussion on collaboration on RTD activities and set up the next steps for joint project preparation under two different programmes with Green Energy Park. From an RTD perspective, this lead was the strongest one, yet I have come up with several technology developers and providers where more in-depth discussions are necessary for further partnership to evolve, but there are quite a few touching points in this respect.

From a business perspective – I would say, that we now have a more in-depth understanding of the regulations and environment of this region, which will allow us to reach this market more easily. We have placed strong friendships (I would say) for further business collaboration, taking into consideration both those inside the delegation and South MED participants/matchmaking partners. This Matchmaking event for me was great – almost every meeting was of my cluster's area of interest and around 50% of them were very strong, with concrete follow-up activities.

I would recommend these events for the following reasons:

1. Inspiration: It is a great opportunity to meet and greet bright-minded people working with crazy smart technologies and applications who live to push their cluster organisations to success. 
2. Business: It is also a great opportunity to explore regions from the inside. Especially if you have targets for your cluster to enter specific markets or regions – this is a great way to go.
3. RTD: This is a good approach especially if you are looking for something concrete, like writing a proposal or are thinking about writing one and trying to expand your network. This is primarily because in direct meetings you can address a much wider scope of collaboration possibilities, and discuss right there and then - if the person you are talking to will not join the proposal they will likely direct you to the one you are looking for. 
4. The single region – single market approach. The possibility to collaborate in this way should be more extensive in my opinion. This is our way to connect, share ideas that flow in the air as they happen and join forces to strengthen the EU as a single market. Cooperation instead of competition."