MobiGoIn-Action participated to the Cluster Matchmaking Event in Toronto, Canada

Submitted by Silvana Sanfe… on 26 June 2019

In early June we were invited to take part to a major EU-Canada cluster matchmaking event in Toronto, organised by the European Cluster Collaboration Platform between the 5th and 7th of June 2019.​​​​​​

16 European countries (25 clusters) were invited to meet Canadian Superclusters (5-9 clusters), the Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and the EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.The Superclusters we met in Canada define themselves as super connectors. They all took part in the program and setup to find and form new relationships with Europe and establish new sustainable relations. The purpose and goal is to build new ”bridges” that strive for change. The Canadian Superclusters come from areas like Advanced manufacturing, Artificial intelligence, Digital technology, Ocean industries and the Protein industries.

Pernilla Lavesson, business developer, from Media Evolution – one of the project partners of MobiGoIn-Action was invited to talk about the ”Mobility Goes International – in Action" project. During the talk Pernilla brought up: Objectives, the consortium and the two smart mobility target markets (WR1: USA and Canada & WR2: China and Singapore. She also talked about the services that the project is offering to European SMEs: Acceleration program and internationalisation program, the activities we are doing within the target markets and finally what we can offer to our European and international partners.

Pernilla presenting MobiGoIn-Action in Canada

The audience were European Clusters, the Canadian Super Clusters, the EU Commissioner for Single Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, the Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development among other Canadian companies, universities and other stakeholders. The feedback was really amazing and many participants in the audience wanted to hear more about the project, the different clusters involved and how we make the work run smoothly and in a successful way.

Study visits

During the stay, the EU delegation had the pleasure to visit different innovation hubs in southern Ontario, such as MaRS Discovery District and the McMaster Innovation Park, the headquarters of the Canadian Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster and Communitech, just to mention a few.

MaRS supports Canada’s most promising startups – helping them grow, create jobs and solve society’s greatest challenges.

McMaster Innovation Park is a premier research park that offers collaborative space for researchers and entrepreneurs alike to co-locate, connect and commercialize.

Communitech is the regional hub for the commercialization of innovative technologies supporting and building a Southwestern Ontario tech cluster of close to 1,000 companies. Communitech helps tech companies start, grow and succeed.

The Clusters also took part of plenty of group discussion sessions. One of the roundtable discussions ”EU-Canada Digital Technology Cluster” brought up conversations about ”Areas where cooperation has the highest added value”, ”Key steps, from the first contact to the formalization of the cooperation”, ”Key support service for SMEs”, ”Main challenges and barriers to tackle” and ”Success factors to establish collaboration with counterpart (from the EU/from Canada respectively) in the field. The summary and main insights from the discussion were in the field of: ”Right player is key!”, ”Create structures and build a platform.”, ”Trust each other - trust is everything.”, ”Construct a tooling box to use.”, ”Facilitated bridging.”, ”We need a business driven purpose.” and finally ”Meet each other in person! Personal contacts means everything”.

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