Innovators Academy in Milan
On 7–8 May in Milan, 21 entrepreneurs from Mediterranean countries, and 7 coaches gathered for some intense training on business modelling, IPR and investment readiness.
The Innovators Academy, the first event of THE NEXT SOCIETY Start-up Booster Track, was organised by the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) with the support of the European Business and Innovation Centres Network (EBN) and the Middle East Business Angels Network (MBAN). Over two days, the participating entrepreneurs got to learn best practices from business and investment experts/investors from Italy, France, Belgium and the USA and to work on their company presentations.
The various workshops on Business Modelling, Go To Market Strategy, Intellectual Property, Investment Readiness, Investor Presentation and Presentation Skills helped them to rethink their business model, to reconsider patenting, to improve their pitch presentation and to work on their presentation soft skills.
The entrepreneurs particularly appreciated the one2one mentoring sessions with the coaches where they got the opportunity to sit for 30 minutes and rework on their pitch presentation in a very in-depth manner, in preparation for the second day pitching competition.
These intense working sessions allowed the entrepreneurs to put in practice the theory they had just learnt in the various workshops, to fine-tune their presentations, to understand better in a face-to-face discussion what investors expect from them and to rethink the way of presenting their product(s) and/or service(s).
The activity that everyone was looking forward to took place on the second afternoon of the event when the 15 start-ups competed at a small pitching competition.
The best two were to win the award of “The Most Investable Company” which directly selected them for the upcoming Power Dinner with Investors activity to be held during the BigBooster competition 2018 in Lyon where they will get the chance to meet and pitch their projects to investors and raise funds. 4 start-ups that could not attend physically the event even pitched remotely from Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia.
The final winners, elected as the most promising start-ups and getting the opportunity to participate in the upcoming Power Dinner were Moodfit (Lebanon) represented by Mohamad Sabouneh and Moldiag (Morocco) represented by Abdeladim Moumen. Overall, this first event of THE NEXT SOCIETY Start-up Booster track was a real success in meeting the expectations of these promising entrepreneurs who had made, for some of them, a very long journey to the European boot.
THE NEXT SOCIETY has thus completed its first start-ups’ promotion, which will have the opportunity to be accompanied by the initiative as part of the Start-up Booster Track. This tailor-made acceleration programme for start-ups of the MENA region aims to give them access to key markets in Europe, Africa, Gulf Countries and USA.
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