Report on the Innovation Northern Greece 5.0

The Conference on “Innovation in Northern Greece and the bodies that support it 5.0” came to a successful conclusion. The 2-day event was held in the context of Beyond, Helexpo on Thursday 25 April and Friday 26 April, with 153 speakers, 25 panels, and 9 workshops. The conference was co-organized by NBG Business Seeds, Beyond, the Athens Chamber of Commerce & Industry, OK!Thess, Tecs Capital, the Alexander Innovation Zone, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, CERTH, the Athens Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ACEin) of the Athens University of Economics and Business, the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce, the Hellenic Development Bank of Investments, Uni.fund, Μetavallon, L-Stone Capital, Bayer Ηellas, and the Municipality of Thessaloniki.

Discussions and workshops were attended by 15 key bodies and organizations, mapping out innovation in Northern Greece. The conference was opened with welcome speeches by Ms. Sofia Kounenaki Efraimoglou, Chair of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Stathis Konstantinidis, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs for the Macedonia-Thrace sector, Mr. Stelios Aggeloudis, Mayor of Thessaloniki, Mr. Haralambos Feidas, Rector at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and Mr. Charalambos Vlatakis, Head of NBG Group Business Strategy.

Over the following 2 days, Saturday 27 April and Sunday 28 April, a "Match & Develop a startup 6.0" bootcamp took place for research teams and startups at the Center for Research & Technology Hellas/CERTH, with 35 participants. At the bootcamp, teams had the chance to discuss their ideas with local entrepreneurs, attend workshops, examine financing opportunities and receive mentoring and support by executives of the following funds: Uni.fund, Metavallon, L-Stone Capital, Linked Business, Geekbot, as well as by officers of Amcham, Bayer, SPIRA – Technology Transfer Office, CERTH, OK! Thess, Τecs Capital and ΝΒG Business Seeds.

The Bootcamp concluded on Sunday 28 April with presentations by the teams before the panel of judges. Complago company qualified directly for the 2nd phase of the 15th Innovation & Technology Competition. The teams Daisy Robot, CDXi IKE, GRaphene, ZARZAVapp were invited to participate in the Genesis Ventures accelerator, and the teams DO.BE and Job Rider were invited for a further contact / discussion with Epsilon Net with the aim of exploring a possible pilot run / future collaboration. Last, annual subscriptions from Geekbot and AWS were given to all participants.

We look forward to seeing you again in 2025.