ACCELERO

A Deep Dive into ACCELERO's Mission and Recent Activities

The European landscape is a melting pot of innovation but also presents a challenging diversity in terms of its maturity. This is where ACCELERO steps in, serving as a cornerstone in fostering a balanced and inclusive European innovation ecosystem.

Why ACCELERO?

It is essential to understand why ACCELERO exists and what it aims to achieve to comprehend the scope of its mission fully. Europe is a continent rich in innovative minds and technologies, yet the levels of innovation maturity vary greatly among the 27 member states. Recognizing this, ACCELERO is designed with a core mission to provide robust support for entrepreneurship and business-building throughout Europe. This involves creating an environment conducive to innovation and growth by leveraging acceleration, incubation, and comprehensive business support services.

ACCELERO Consortium Meeting in Krakow

Exciting developments took place when ACCELERO consortium members gathered for a two-day intensive meeting in beautiful Krakow. The event was graciously hosted by Krakow Technology Park. Among the various activities, the team discussed the fine-tuning of recently co-created services and took the opportunity to marvel at the cutting-edge work being conducted at the National Synchrotron Radiation Centre SOLARIS. The meeting served to strengthen the commitment to foster synergies among various innovation agents across Europe.

Focusing on Startups and SMEs

Aligned with the objectives set forth by Horizon EU, ACCELERO assumes a pivotal role in empowering startups and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The focus is on enhancing their innovation capacities by utilizing available frameworks and resources.

Partners and Financial Backing

ACCELERO is a collaborative initiative led by EurA AG and includes key partners like the European Business & Innovation Centre Network (EBN), bwcon, BIC Innobridge, and EuroQuity - Bpifrance. Most recently, the initiative was hosted by Krakow Technology Park for the consortium meeting. Financially, the project is backed by the European Innovation Council and the SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA).

As we continue to make strides in shaping an inclusive, effective, and robust European innovation ecosystem, your engagement is what fuels our mission. We look forward to sharing more updates as we take collective leaps towards realizing this vision.

We are delighted to announce the successful completion of the ACCELERO Co-creation Design Sprint, which concluded last Friday, September 8th. This event brought together consortium partners, Business Support Organizations (BSOs), and innovation hubs from across Europe to collaborate on innovative solutions in an intensive week-long engagement.

A Customer-Centric Approach

The sprint focused on fostering an environment that prioritized customer-centricity and innovation. This was achieved through various activities such as problem framing, brainstorming, and prototyping, with the objective of increasing customer satisfaction. The design sprint also provided an unparalleled opportunity to pool a wide range of knowledge and expertise, thereby enhancing our problem-solving capabilities.

Collaborative Efforts Yield High-Quality Outputs

The final day of the sprint was dedicated to presentations that showcased the co-created solutions. These presentations were enriched by the collaborative input from our EU Hubs and ACCELERO partners, who provided invaluable insights to improve and fine-tune the proposed solutions. As a result, the output quality was of a notably high standard, setting the stage for the next phase of the project.

Engaged Participants

We extend our gratitude to the consortium partners EurA AG, EBN - European Business & Innovation Centre Network, bwcon, BIC Innobridge, and our financial pillar, EuroQuity - Bpifrance. In addition, we thank the participating BSOs including Poznan Science and Technology Park of Adam Mickiewicz University Foundation, FUNDECYT-PCTEX, Teknopark İzmir, fonduri-structurale.ro / consolid8, Kielecki Park Technologiczny / Kielce Technology Park, Youth Entrepreneurial Service Foundation, BUSINESS E-INCUBATOR GO-UP, Creacció. Agència d'Emprenedoria, Innovació i Coneixement, Poduzetnički centar Krapinsko-zagorske županije, and Instituto Pedro Nunes, for their enthusiasm and commitment.

Looking Ahead

While this marks a milestone, it is also the beginning of an ongoing journey to refine the co-created solutions to meet the specific needs and contexts of various BSOs.

We would also like to acknowledge the unwavering support of the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) as part of the Horizon EU framework, in our quest to enhance European Innovation Ecosystems, startups, and SMEs.

Thank you for being part of this monumental effort to reshape Europe's innovative landscape.

Day 3 and 4 of ACCELERO Co-creation sprint are over. The participating BSOs have gone together through an intensive ideation and prototyping process - two crucial steps to turn their collective insights into feasible solutions.

They had the chance collaborate using tools which enable them to better formulate their value proposition and fine-tune it in accordance to their customers’ pains and context.

On day 3the 10 BSOs selected the most promising ideas and developed hypotheses to be tested in the next steps of the project.

On day 4 they finetuned their initial ideas adding more focus to the value the newly designed service is expecting to bring. Key steps for the implementation of those new innovation support services were outlined. Our participants started prototyping their solutions by mapping out the experience and the service from both the customers' and the BSOs' point of view.

Their work so far looks really impressive so we are looking forwards tomorrow’s meeting.

Huge admiration for the dedication of our facilitators -
and all the participating BSOs -   Poznan Science and Technology Park of Adam Mickiewicz University Foundation , FUNDECYT-PCTEX, Teknopark İzmir, fonduri-structurale.ro / consolid8, Kielecki Park Technologiczny / Kielce Technology Park, Youth Entrepreneurial Service Foundation, BUSINESS E-INCUBATOR GO-UP  , Creacció. Agència d'Emprenedoria, Innovació i Coneixement, Poduzetnički centar Krapinsko-zagorske županije, and Instituto Pedro Nunes - all striving to reshape Europe's innovative landscape.

#HorizonEU #EUInnovationEcosystems, #startups, #SMEs #impact 

We are excited to share with you the progress of our co-creation design sprint for the ACCELERO project, which aims to develop innovative business acceleration services for startups and SMEs across Europe. 

From 4th to 8th of September, we are working online with a diverse group of participants who bring their visions and expertise to solve the common challenges in their local innovation ecosystems and to design a solution that meets the needs and expectations of their target users.

On day 2, we focused on #empathy and tried to step in the shoes of an innovative business seeking out support to grow and scale. 

Assumptions are not enough to be able to pivot initial ideas around the actual needs of the SMEs and entrepreneurs we support. Hence, participants have experimented research and ideation techniques and found that although from different innovation ecosystems, there are common challenges in designing an acceleration programme. 

This co-creation design sprint is a great way to collaborate, learn and innovate together. Stay tuned to learn what the final outcome will be.

🤝 BSOs Leading the Journey:  Poznan Science and Technology Park of Adam Mickiewicz University Foundation , FUNDECYT-PCTEX, Teknopark İzmir, fonduri-structurale.ro / consolid8, Kielecki Park Technologiczny / Kielce Technology Park, Youth Entrepreneurial Service Foundation, BUSINESS E-INCUBATOR GO-UP , Creacció. Agència d'Emprenedoria, Innovació i Coneixement, Poduzetnički centar Krapinsko-zagorske županije, and Instituto Pedro Nunes. All striving to reshape Europe's innovative landscape.

Our common mission is rooted in the #HorizonEU framework and seeks to enhance #EUInnovationEcosystems, #startups, and #SMEs.

ACCELERO Co-creation Design Sprint has already started!

The design sprint aims to create a safe space for participating BSOs to share their visions and expertise on the problems/challenges they face as local innovation ecosystem builders. Through collaborative work 10 BSOs from moderate and emerging innovation regions in EU will develop a tailored made-solution.

The solution will be a tangible service that can be developed and tested in the next stages of the ACCELERO project.

During the first day we were focused on problem framing. We analysed the root causes of the innovation support problem, created proto-personas and a script for our users (innovative start-ups, SMEs, individual innovators), and aligned on the problem we are going to work on and the users we will design for.

We are looking forwards what is about to come after day 2.

The Co-creation Design Sprint is an online event taking place form 4th till 8th of September organized by the ACCELERO project and funded by the European Union.

The goal of ACCELERO is to create a pan-European community of business support organisations (BSOs) as the one-stop shop for all BSOs and their customers, the startups and SMEs, as well as for peer-to-peer exchange, networking and connectedness for all stakeholders engaged in the broader innovation ecosystem.

🤝 BSOs Leading the Journey are: Poznan Science and Technology Park of Adam Mickiewicz University Foundation , FUNDECYT-PCTEX, Teknopark İzmir, fonduri-structurale.ro / consolid8, Kielecki Park Technologiczny / Kielce Technology Park, Youth Entrepreneurial Service Foundation, BUSINESS E-INCUBATOR GO-UP , Creacció. Agència d'Emprenedoria, Innovació i Coneixement, Poduzetnički centar Krapinsko-zagorske županije, and Instituto Pedro Nunes.
Thank you all for your efforts to reshape Europe's innovative landscape.

Our common mission is rooted in the Horizon EU framework and seeks to enhance EU innovation ecosystems.