Our first #InnovationDays took place on July 14, with a great success of attendance and high level speakers: the European Space Agency (ESA), Hispasat, Quasar SR, Thales Alenia Space, Europe Unlimited, Geko Navsat and the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), among others.

The event began with the welcome of Jarosław Sołtys, Project Director of the Technology Partners Foundation, and partner of the Go2Space-HUBs project.

Next, Joana Kamenova, Outreach and Business Analyst at the European Space Agency (ESA), offered an overview of how ESA can support and promote new companies through its funding lines, pointing to our HUBs as tools to drive the ecosystem. She also provided information on actual challenges related to space and space technology solutions.

Emma Crespo, from the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Service of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, presented the Go2Space-HUBs project, its three HUBs in Madrid, Coimbra and Tallinn, and the open Call for entrepreneurs and start-ups and scale-ups, before giving way to the first round table.

Teresa Barber, Junior Business Development, Digital at Europe Unlimited and Carlos Toledo, from the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) spoke about the challenges of European space sector and financial instruments for start-ups.

The next round table, ‘From space technologies to innovative businesses’ was composed by José Luis Serrano, Head of Services, Solutions and Innovation at Hispasat; Lara Arche, Innovation Manager at Thales Alenia Space; Rafael Olmedo, Founder & CEO of Geko Navsat and Ignacio de la Calle, Business Development Manager at Quasar Science Resources, who offered a very interesting insight from the experience of their respective companies.

Lastly, Gemma Villegas, from the UC3M Entrepreneurship and Innovation Service, detailed the HUB Madrid Acceleration Program.

The event ended with some questions to the speakers and the opportunity to fix B2B meetings.

The organization of the event was in charge of Knowledge Innovation Market (KIM).

The next Innovation Days will take place on July 22 HUB Coimbra and August 24 HUB Tallinn