- Finnova Foundation has organised a meeting and training workshop for Talent Factory at the CSIC headquarters in Brussels
- The aim of the event was to bring the work of the European institutions closer to young people and to present European projects such as Res4City, CulturaldeTour and LIFE ECOdigestion 2.0.
20/10/2023, Brussels. On Thursday 19 October at 11:00 (CEST) a meeting was held at the offices of the delegation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Brussels, where Finnova presented three European projects to the young participants of the Talent Factory School Hackathon. In addition, the event was used to discuss opportunities for young people in the EU and working. Also, groups were organised with the participants of the initiative, where six municipal challenges related to the following topics were solved: waste collection, water saving, sustainable housing, more sustainable cities, and climate change.
The introductory speech was given by Elena Domínguez Cañas, institutional coordinator and CSIC delegate in Brussels, who presented the CSIC’s mission and highlighted the value of young talent, as well as the need to develop skills that foster creativity.
Pablo Barrios, head of cultural projects at Finnova, then took the floor. Barrios introduced the CulturaldeTour project, which focuses on using innovation to foster collaboration and entrepreneurship in the cultural tourism sector. The project has a budget of 200,000 euros and is led by three partners: Envolve Entrepreneurship (Greece), Finnova (Belgium) and Arctur (Slovenia).
The next speaker was Patricia Tejada, head of vocational training, Erasmus+ and training and youth at Finnova, who explained the European project Res4City, whose main objective is to address the skills shortage in the EU in the renewable energy sector, accelerating the energy transition. Res4City has a budget of 2.5 million euros and brings together 17 partners from eight countries, including the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Tejada also talked about the EU transparency registration mechanism, a database of entities and organisations that seek to influence the formulation or implementation of European policies according to the interests of their constituencies.
Finally, Ester Mbomio, from Finnova’s communication department, presented the LIFE ECOdigestion 2.0 project, a project funded by the European LIFE programme that, through its technology, generates renewable energy (biogas) in water treatment plant digesters by mixing putrescible organic waste. This project has a budget of more than 970,000 euros and is led by Global Omnium (Spain) in collaboration with the Finnova Foundation (Belgium) and Aguas do Centro Litoral (Portugal).
Subsequently, working groups were organised in which the 24 young participants, together with the help of 6 company technicians and 6 trainers, developed their ideas through the design thinking methodology.
The event concluded with catering by Mediterranea Food & Events, specialists in Spanish products.
About the Finnova Foundation
Finnova is a foundation working for the promotion and development of innovation and entrepreneurship at EU level. Based in Brussels, it operates through collaborations and partnerships in all EU countries. Finnova’s expertise in leading European project communication and dissemination activities is combined with a strong proven track record in start-ups and business support programmes, such as accelerators, incubators and ceremonial event selection and awarding.
About Talent Factory
Talent Factory is an initiative that seeks to encourage entrepreneurship in a pedagogical level, helping young people to understand and prepare for the future of work. They create talent detection programmes in the classroom and, in the last 8 years, they have already trained more than 15,000 young people in entrepreneurial skills.
About CSIC
The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is a State Agency for scientific research and technological development, with a special legal status, its own assets and treasury, functional and managerial autonomy, full legal capacity and of unlimited duration.