From Brussels and Paris to meeting online! While the eternal city of Rome was our initial plan, our 4th consortium meeting had to take place in a far less exciting place, our own. Nonetheless, this did not break our spirit and as you can see in our picture, everyone was happy to catch-up and plan the next steps for InnoRate in our virtual meeting on the 27th and 28th of May.
For over one and a half years, we have been working on developing the core concepts that can create an unrivaled technology rating platform that can help innovative tech-driven SMEs showcase their potential and assist the decision making of investors: the so-called InnoRate Technology Rating System (ITRS), the architecture of the platform and the formulation of appropriate business models.
In our two-days meeting, we were happy to talk about how these core aspects have evolved ever since. Our project officer, Andrés Álvarez-Fernández participated in both sessions of our meeting to follow our latest updates. More concretely, in the first day, our colleagues from Ernst and Young talked us through the methodology of the ITRS. Then, our colleagues from Ontotext took the floor and walked us through the initial functionalities of the platform: how to register and use its various services, including pre-screening and benchmarking companies. Next, TechTour Global and EBN discussed about the investment-readiness and matchmaking services that are going to take place during the piloting of our platform. Our consortium discussed alternative arrangements for those events in light of the current situation with the pandemic and agreed on a plan to engage a pool of experts that can support them. What this means, essentially, is that you should stay tuned and check regularly our website or social media, as you will be soon able to test our platform, register in our various events, and if you qualify, become a member of our pool of experts and network with like-minded peers.
In our second day, the focus was on the validation of the business models that were developed, on IPR management, on the communication activities and the next steps. Q-Plan took the lead and talked about the three commercially viable models that were developed. In turn, White Research has talked about the validation exercise of these models, and the dissemination performance of the project, presenting also one of the dissemination highlights, the official promotional video of the project. Finally, the floor was given again to Q-Plan to discuss a concrete action plan for the next semester, to ensure that our efforts are orchestrated towards our common goal of establishing InnoRate in the market.
Overall, the echoes have been thus far great, and the best are yet to come. Soon, investors, innovation intermediaries, technology transfer offices, matchmaking firms and SMEs will be able to test our platform and help us refine it in order to make it a credible and established assessment tool in the market. Until our next project meeting, stay tuned and follow us to be the first to know about our upcoming news and events!
