MARIBOR – KOSICE 1^st MENTORING TRAINING

The first mentoring workshop for the Košice region Core team was held on 30^th May 2017 in Košice, Slovakia. URBAN INNO Technical manager at TUKE František Janke welcomed core team members and mentoring partners, and introduced the participants with current development in the mentored region with a focus on emerging quadruple-helix cluster. The Core team members revealed their visions, plans, motivations and expectations regarding to engagement in the Quadrupple-helix Innovation Network for the support of Local Economy.

The mentoring part started with the pitch presentation realized by Matjaž Gerl (e-Zavod) focusing on main objectives and outputs of project URBAN INNO. This was followed by the presentation of Municipality of Maribor (MOM) - Tadej Kurent and Vesna Avguštinčič - focused on their experience with the establishment of triple-helix urban innovation network within the Smart City Maribor initiative - its funding and importance of citizens’ involvement. After the presentation of MOM, representatives of Košice Self-governing Region opened an interesting discussion to learn more about the practical experiences of Municipality of Maribor. The mostly discussed topics were the regularity of meetings, the decision making process and the motivation of members to continue in cooperation.

In the second mentoring session Matjaž Gerl (e-Zavod) explained how the Smart City Maribor Network has been developed step by step, pointing out the critical factors for stakeholders’ involvement and how to activate local authorities that play a key role in the whole process. By the end of presentations, participants were informed about the possibilities of project funding as a key motivating instrument for the innovation cluster members.