«INTERREG V-A Greece-Bulgaria 2014 -2020»
Alexander Innovation Zone S.A. is the Lead Beneficiary of the project “CO-WORKING” in cooperation with Partners from Greece and Bulgaria.
The Project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and National Funds of the countries participating in the INTERREG V-A “Greece- Bulgaria 2014-2020” Cooperation Programme.
Read more: INTERREG CO-WORKING Project Call
CO-WORKING project envisages a set of innovative actions by creating two pre-incubating supporting mechanisms which aim to accelerate early-stage teams to validate the potential of an innovative business idea under real conditions before taking a business risk in order to overcome the so-called “death valley”.
The project involves among others, training, mentoring, coaching activities as well as boot camps, pitching, and demo-day events. The mission of the pre-incubators will be to catalyze an innovation ecosystem in the c-b area, which will bring the local partners together, hence startup founders, industry, academia, investors, and other incubators, aiming to facilitate knowledge and take promising ideas to the next stage, by initiating a holistic approach.
Alexander Innovation Zone S.A. (Lead Beneficiary)
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki- Special Account for Research Funds (Project Beneficiary 2)
University Of National and World Economy (Project Beneficiary 3)
National Company Industrial Zones PLC (Project Beneficiary 4)
Expected results
• (150) potential hosted entrepreneurs & teams receive support in Bootcamp Weeks.
• (300) participants are involved in Demo days and Meetups
• (150) young scientists, (150) local companies, (40) policy makers & (25) experts make use of the action plan on c-b Pre-incubation Strategy, Policy Action Plan, Tool Kit and Modules.
• (150) people with promising business ideas participate in holistic early stage accelerate support program and (80) of them make use of the Business Model Canvas, the Assumption Validation and the Business Diagnosis Tool.
• (200) local companies visit the Business Idea Diagnosis Tool & (100) make use the Modules.
• (25) teams participate in pitching events and present their business ideas in front of an evaluation committee.
• (15) potential entrepreneurs develop their own business activity
• (4) EU institutions, (10) national institutions, (30) regional and local institutions will be informed on project results
• (50 entrepreneurs), (10) local authorities & (10) education institutions participate in the consultations with key stakeholders.
• (10.000) citizens is the target group of Mass Media Campaign
• (20) policy makers, SMEs & staff members are affected by missions organization
• (800) visits to the web site annually
What is the Co-Working project?
In the framework of the Co-Working project, a total of three (3) training cycles will take place in the form of experiential workshops, with the participation of twenty (20) potential entrepreneurs in each cycle.
The acceleration programme – Bootcamp will be structured in the following 5 thematic modules:
Indicative Timetable
| 2 hours | Presentation of Lean Startup Methodology |
| 2 hours | Questions – Discussion – Brainstorming |
| 2 hours | Briefing Groups |
| 2 hours | Presentation of good examples of Lean Startup Part 1 |
| 2 hours | Presentation of good examples of Lean Startup Part 2 |
| 2 hours | Questions – Discussion – Brainstorming |
| Total theory 12 hours | |
| 6 hours | Practical Exercise – Case Studies Lean Startup 1st part |
| 6 hours | Practical Exercise – Case Studies Lean Startup 2nd part |
| Total practice 12 hours | |
