During our last day of the CSS event, we brought another very important value for our participants by introducing them with the Public Policies, Funding landscape & Open Call opportunities. Plenary session four (P4) has presented the position of public policy in digitalisation and its links to technology, innovation, sustainability and the Green Deal. Speakers included representatives of the European Commission, EIT Manufacturing, and EIT Health (TBC). Following the P4 speakers’ presentations, a series of funding opportunities of EU funded projects were presented, providing cascade funding in the four application domains (Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Internet of Things, and Cybersecurity). This includes both currently open calls but also calls that are planned to open until the end of 2020. Funding opportunities were included calls of the Smart Anything Everywhere (SAE) initiative: DigiFed, SmartEEs2, DIH4CPS, SMART4ALL TETRAMAX, BOWI, Hubcap and of a series of projects:  Block.IS, Market 4.0, Demeter, DAPSI, Blockstart, EDI incubator, Digicirc, X-Europe, MME, TRINITY and NGI Explorers.

Moreover, just after the P4 session, Internationalisation to the US took place! This session covered topics such as Strategies for going international, ENRICH in the USA Services, and how to identify Funding opportunities available in the US!

P4 was moderated by Babis Ipektsidis, the Delivery Manager & Research and Innovation Policy analyst at the INTRASOFT International and EXPAN Consulting. He has more than 13 years of experience in the European R&D and Innovation projects and impacts assessment studies. Babis introduced the participants with the vision of the CSS, ecosystem, and goals to inspire innovative approaches, foster new partnerships, and deliver better value out of the Summit as week as with the objective of this particular session. Just after the P4 session, Babis has presented the Internationalisation to the US session. Likewise, he took the opportunity to showcase the Coimbra Sustainability Summit in figures: 4 H2020 projects engaged in the organisation of CSS, 300+ participants from 33 countries, 10 sessions, 33 speakers, 7 brokerage moments organised and 71 participants in the brokerage activities.

Our first speaker was Mr. Sandro D’Elia, a European Commission Programme Officer (Technologies and systems for digitising industry). He is contributing to EU policy development, primarily in the context of the governance and evolution of the “Digitising European Industry” initiative. Sandro is representing the European Commission in the governing board of ECSEL, a joint initiative of the European Commission, European Governments and Industry Associations supporting the development of electronic components and systems industry in the European Union.

Dr. Dimitris Mavrikios continued the session as our second speaker. He is a Chief Operations Officer (COO) at EIT Manufacturing ASBL – the newly established EIT KIC with headquarters in Paris-Saclay. He is responsible for implementing the annual cycle of operations. He organizes and oversees the process to elaborate and approve the annual Business Plans and their operational executions and is responsible for the record-keeping and reporting towards EIT. He coordinates risk management and maintains the IT system that supports KIC’s operations.

And last but not the least, Ms. Vera Moura closed the session as our third speaker. Vera has collaborated with the Tech Transfer Office from the University of Coimbra and mentored several Entrepreneurship Programs. Vera Moura was co-founder and CEO of TREAT U, a start-up company dedicated to the research and development of nanotechnology-based platforms for the specific treatment of solid tumors. She has recently joined EIT Health InnoStars as a new Regional Manager for Portugal.

The presentations were followed by a Q&A session between our participants and the CSS panelists including everyone in the conversation using the Poll Everywhere through pollev.com interactive concept, which led to fruitful discussions and useful conclusions on the relevant topics to our CSS participants.

All in all, it was an exciting two weeks that facilitated the exchange of valuable information, sharing of ideas and networking with creative people. We are delighted to share with you the results that have been achieved and which reflects on the number of 300+ participants from 33 countries at the CSS online event!