Introduction of the event:

• Juraj Dobrila University of Pula and The Region of Istria held an event to promote Open Innovation Lab’s second cycle and future activities, which also served as an announcement of the call for expression of interest.
• The promotion event took place on the 12th of October in the premises of Juraj Dobrila University University of Pula. The number of the participants was 85, mostly the students in the field of Informatics. The presentation of the cycle, offered challenges and planned activities was held by lab manager, Mirena Tubić, and the preparation of the event was supported by the Region of Istria.
• During the presentation of the classes opened for public “Robotics and future” on 26th of October in the premises of Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, assistant professor Sven Maričić, UNIPU project team member, has also announced the beginning of the second lab’s cycle, which will be organized with the support by the Institute for technology and science VISIO.  
• The call for expression of interest is planned to be launched in the beginning of November. For the second cycle UNIPU and ISTRIA project teams have prepared 7 challenges offered by small enterprises and business support organizations from the local area. The call will finally gather young talents from the region who will participate in Entrepreneurship training and team work with mentors in the duration of 5 months. The aim of the second cycle is reducing the brain drain, usage of innovative methods, connecting academic, business and public sector and enhancing the local innovative ecosystem. The results of the first cycle in Croatia included employing the young talents after creating innovative solutions, and with few improvements second cycle of Croatian lab is prepared.

Juraj Dobrila University of Pula is a higher education institution, and the Region of Istria is a unit of regional self-government. Both are partners in DA-SPACE project.