Made in Danube Report
“Brokerage Event – Smart and Innovative Precision Farming”
Nitra, 26.11.2018

The main objective of Brokerage Event organized in Nitra, Slovakia on 26th November 2018 was to bring together the representatives of SMEs, R&D institutions and academia to foster local innovation capacity through good practices examples and knowledge exchange in the area of Smart and Innovative Precision Farming. The Danube macro-region provides ideal framework conditions for the area of smart and innovative precision farming due to high-quality natural resources, long tradition, well-known universities and SMEs operating in given area. However, the region is still lagging behind its possibilities and missing links between research and innovation hamper the access to required knowledge and resources. For this reason, the aim of the event was to strengthen the cooperation in given area.
As an introduction, Mr. Daniel Acs from the Union of Slovak Clusters together with Mrs. Danka Moravcikova from Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, welcomed the participants and presented the aim of the brokerage event, the project Made in Danube and the objective of Slovak Local Initiative. Following Mr. Bernhard Koch and Mr. Mihai Dragomir explained how to transform ideas into marketable products and services and how to find a relevant partner in international environment using so-called TIN e-tool. Subsequently, Mr. Daniel Acs presented existing financial instruments oriented on the support of the technology transfer.

Afterwards, interested participants had the possibility to present their products, services and/or innovative ideas. Several specific technology requests and offers were presented to the audience. The main part of the event was devoted to B2B/Research2Business networking activity. During the matchmaking, the participants had the space for bilateral face-to-face meetings in order to discuss the business matters in reserved 20 minutes time slot sessions. As a result, participants had an opportunity to meet interesting potential cooperation partners. Furthermore, there was a fruitful discussion among participants during the whole event.

Moreover, the event contributed to exploit synergies with other INTERREG projects auch as CrowdStream wich was presented by ConPlusUltra Ltd, the Austrian participant of the event.
In total ~ 40 participants from 5 countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Austria & Romania) attended the event that involved experts on technology transfer and innovations, researchers as well as the representatives from academia and SMEs.

During the event, the participant evaluation form was distributed to all participants in order to improve the organization and the impact of similar events. The results of anonymous questionnaires  showed an overall satisfaction with the quality, content and the organization of the event.