HiT Barcelona proves that innovation is the way out of the economic crisis
• The summit brought together 2.000 delegates, of which 35% international, who got to know first hand, from the gurus of economy, the concepts and tools necessary to deal with the future challenges.
• The event positioned itself as a meeting platform between investors and entrepreneurs to combine innovative ideas and financing.
• The event also unveiled 65 of the best entrepreneurial projects in sectors that are strategic for the future.
Barcelona, world capital in innovation
World Innovation Summit closed with the achievement of its goal: to turn Barcelona into one of the world capitals in innovation. For three day, gurus, investors and entrepreneurs met and networked to learn the latest trends in innovation and its role as the way out of the global economic crisis, to share strategies to face the challenges ahead and drive the business projects with great potential.
HiT Barcelona demonstrated the added-value of its unique format: bringing together in a single event the ideas, concepts and tools necessary for entrepreneurial innovation, acting as a platform for great business projects and investors looking for interesting investment opportunities.
Innovation congress and Telecom, Cleantech and Healthcare marketplaces
The first day featured the Plenary Congress, featured Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ray Kurzweil, Gary Hamel, Vijay Govindarajan and Michael Eisner who gave remarkable conferences on the theory and practice of innovation from their respective points of view, presenting key trends and highlighting the fact that encouraging creativity, new models, and getting rid of the fear of change and failure are critical to face the future.
This first edition of HiT Barcelona World Innovation Summit was focused on three of the industries with the best future growth potential in the current global economic climate: Telecom, Cleantech and Healthcare. The Innovation Marketplaces, each dedicated to one of these three sectors, gathered for 2 days business executives, investors and innovators with ideas and projects looking for financing. Each Innovation Marketplace held a tournament with a total of 37 participating companies competing for investors’ recognition and the necessary resources to drive their projects further.
The Global Entrepreneurship Competition
HiT Barcelona also featured the first edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Competition, a unique truly international business-plans/early-stage tournament that called for start-ups from around the world with demonstrable high future growth projections, in total 28 projects from 21 countries.
The World Nominating Committee (formed by business schools, universities, technology parks and incubators) nominated 24 of these young ventures. Four finalists came from existing Spanish entrepreneur promotion programmes (three from the Emprendedor XXI Award, promoted by “la Caixa” and ENISA and one from the XV Fòrum d’Investment d’ACC1Ó).
The winners of the 90,000 Euros awards are Bmat, Spain (1st), The Broccoli Project, South Africa (2nd), Polyskin, India (3rd), Echopixel Techonologies, Mexico (Best Presentation) and The Broccoli Project (Best Social Value).
Investors direct access to potential investment opportunities
HiT Barcelona offered investors a unique opportunity to have direct access to a number of potential investment opportunities. Werner Wolf, Strategic Advisor of the venture capital firm TVM Capital said
“during these three days we got to know projects that definitely are worth following and recommending.”
Wolf added that these three days helped turn the common underestimation of Spain both in its scientific research capacity and entrepreneurial activity around and open new perspectives.
HiT Barcelona welcomed about 2,000 attendees, of which 35% international, and was a joint initiative by the Ministry of Industry, the Catalan Government, Barcelona City Council, Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and “La Caixa”, and was organised by Fira de Barcelona and the Pla Estrategic Metropolita de Barcelona.
