Acquaintance with Barcelona’s innovation producers
The Innovative Entrepreneurship and Innovation Production Support Institutions of Barcelona had the opportunity to get acquainted with the Regional Councilor of the Region of Central Macedonia Mr. Nikolaos Tzollas, the Deputy Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support Department Mr. and NOESIS Museum of Technology, Mr. Athanasios Kontonikolaou.
In particular, responding to relevant invitations and in the context of their participation in the final conference of the European project Blue Crowd Funding, they first met with the Executive Director of the Fab Lab in Barcelona, Mr. Guillem Camprodon, from whom they toured the laboratory and discussed ways to transport it. know-how of the laboratory in the Region of Central Macedonia, but also proposals for cooperation in the framework of co-financed projects.
Barcelona Fab Lab is the oldest Fab Lab in Europe, operating since 2007 and leading the network of European Fab Labs with about 1800 members. It is a digital construction laboratory with 7 thematic groups and a number of specialized robotic machines and equipment, such as 3D printers, which are available to businesses, students and individuals to experiment, create and test prototypes. ideas, but also to receive guidance from experts to improve their innovations. Fab Labs generally provide access to the environment, skills, materials and advanced technology to allow anyone, anywhere to make (almost) anything.
They then visited Sokotech’s private digital social innovation lab, which focuses on creating value through creativity, science and technology. The workshop is staffed by an interdisciplinary team of experts in the fields of science, technology, creativity and innovation and develops projects from conception to implementation, enhancing innovation with a human-centered design philosophy. This workshop is very active in bringing the local community and especially the student community in contact with modern technologies.
The third workshop they visited was the Ateneus de Fabricació Parc Technologic, which is a structure of the Municipality of Barcelona that disseminates the technology and science of digital construction. The Ateneus de Fabricació network consists of 5 fab labs throughout the city of Barcelona, which have spaces that are available for learning and collaboration in different projects and are part of the social development of the city. Anyone can use the spaces, tools and public resources of these workshops and propose projects to improve the immediate environment of their community and neighborhood. They are structures that are at the service of citizens, teachers, businesses and the local community and co-organize specialized programs with modern technologies and innovation tailored to their needs and requirements.
Finally, they met with the General Manager, Valenti Farras, and the Head of Design, Marisa Martinez of CosmoCaixa, an interactive Science Museum, one of the most famous in Europe. CosmoCaixa is a museum where different disciplines are explained instructively and interactively. The visitor has the opportunity to explore physical, technical, geological, chemical and mathematical relationships in hundreds of experiments and is especially popular with students.
The Region of Central Macedonia has already included in the Smart Specialization Strategy for Innovation of the period 2021-2027 the creation of structures to support innovations and entrepreneurship and the in-depth acquaintance with the above bodies gave the opportunity to understand their various operating models, their purposes , the methodology with which they operate, but also their future plans in order to find the way to transfer the above good examples to the Region of Central Macedonia, either with the financing of the RDP KM 2021-2027 or through participatory financing.
