06-09-2018

On the 31.08.2018 the Bulgarian National Television shot a 30-minute movie about TU-Sofia with emphasis on innovations. The lab manager Vladislav Ivanov was interviewed and given the opportunity to speak about the Open Innovation Lab which operates at TU-Sofia as a part of the DA-SPACE project. He answered questions about the interest of the students as solvers in the open innovations as well as the interest of the industry in different forms of cooperation with the university as seekers, following the principles of Open Innovation - having an open mind to existing knowledge and ideas, creating new knowledge in cooperation with others and sharing the accumulated knowledge.

Two of the students, who will be involved in the Second Cycle of the project as solvers, were also interviewed, following the success of the Pilot Phase. They explained about their education background and interests and how they are attracted by the innovations as a way to enhance innovative thinking and entrepreneurship skills. When asked about their expectations and future plans after graduating from the university or solving their challenges successfully, they said that they wanted to continue working on innovation projects but this time as a part of their own business, focusing on sustainable development, social impact on community and local innovation ecosystem. In this aspect being part of the project DA-SPACE as solvers will help them not only by giving them the opportunity to work on real problems, that need innovative solutions, but also by developing valuable entrepreneurial skills. These are the main reasons why they are going to join the project as seekers.

The interview will be broadcasted on the 21.10.2018. Stay tuned!

06-09-2018

After winning the local demo day the team of young talents, who developed a multi material, self-calibrating 3D printer will make an attempt to go further and use its innovation potential to form a start-up company, working in the field of additive manufacturing. They already developed a prototype of a 3D printer and the next steps are design optimization from manufacturing point of view, market analysis, and developing a business plan. A couple of meetings with business support organizations are already planned.

You can check out their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/hwd3d/

Also, besides the winning solution, the rest of the co-creation projects had a significant impact on the cooperation between academic, business and public sectors. Some of young talents who participated in the first cycle of OIL are hired by the seekers, with the possibility of implementing some solutions in the practice as well as further R&D. The first cycle, or the pilot phase, of the Open Innovation Lab on DA-SPACE project was a great preparation for the next cycle. Of course, there are few improvements here and there to be implemented in order to follow closely the principles of Open Innovation, cooperation and co-creation processes.

31-08-2018

Open Innovation: Being open to the knowledge and ideas of others, creating knowledge together and sharing knowledge with others - these are the central principles of Open Innovation. The large companies have recognized and are successfully implementing this approach for several years. However, there are still many companies that fail to recognize the potential of open innovation. Especially small and medium-sized companies are skeptical about the concept, although Open Innovation offers a lot of potential, in particular for SMEs.

More information: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/news-and-events/project-news/2605

17-08-2018

After five months of enhancing innovative thinking and entrepreneurship skills among young talents, an ending event of DA-SPACE Open Innovation Lab cycle at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula was organized in June. The jury selected the best project and winning team. The winning idea was the use of assembly garage, parking time limit, shuttle bus and mobile application in order to optimize traffic and parking in the old town of Buzet. Through the collaboration between participants, innovative solution was made and existing capability can be enhanced with positive effect on citizens, guests and visitors during the tourist season. The team considered usage of new technologies in order to increase effectiveness of the solution and possibility of sharing it with other cities or within the region.

More information: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/news-and-events/project-news/2566

09-07-2018

The best 7 teams from 233 Young Talents who participated in the DA- SPACE project from seven Danube region countries: Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovak Republic and Romania, have presented their results to real entrepreneurship problems which they worked during the first cycle of open innovation labs.

The 1st International Demo Day, the final event of the First Open Innovation Lab Cycle on a partnership level, held in Croatia. The event, hosted by Juraj Dobrila University Pula and the Region of Istria took place on June 28th 2018 in the premises of Faculty of Economics and Tourism „Dr. Mijo Mirkovic“in Pula.

More information: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/news-and-events/newsletters/2449

15.05.2018

The Local Demo Day for DA-SPACE Open Innovation Lab at TU-Sofia was held on the 15-th of May 2018. The event joined together lab managers, current and future seekers and solvers and guests, including the Innovation Program Managers of the project prof. Lubomir Dimitrov, prof. Milka Vicheva, assoc. prof. Pancho Tomov, George Voutev of GIS, the managers of the TUS OIL assist. prof. Vladislav Ivanov and MEng Kiril Nikolov, as well as the General Manager of Hardware Design Ltd. Alen Pachov.

The seven teams of solvers, working on the challenges presented the results of their work – products with different level of maturity, starting from just a finished survey and analysis up to a fully operating prototype.

Some problems, which both seekers and solvers were facing in their joint work, were discussed during the meeting and new ideas were proposed to increase the efficiency of the Lab. A discussion was also held about the entrepreneurship training which is already running at the lab.

A jury including prof. Lubomir Dimitrov, assoc. prof. Pancho Tomov and assist. prof. Vladislav Ivanov had the not so difficult task of evaluating the achievements of the solvers which are the result of a 5-7 months of work. Some of the evaluation criteria were maturity of the product, level of difficulty, innovativeness and business potential and the obvious winner was the team working on the challenge "Self-calibrating multi material 3D printer" – Alexander Hristov and Radoslav Madzharov. The winning team, following the guidelines for conducting of a local Demo Day will have the opportunity to travel to Pula, Croatia, for the International Demo Day, which will be held in the period 27-28.06.2018.

Last but not least the guest professor from Novi Sad, Serbia – Prof. Dr. Vojin Senk held a short lecture on the topic "Starting high-tech environment out of necessity – case of the University of Novi Sad, Serbia".

16.10.2017

Agenda:

1st day: Monday, 09th October 2017

12:30 – 12:45 - Registration and Reception
12:45 – 13:00 - Opening: Introduction from APTE
13:00 – 13:30 - WP 3 Preparatory Activities (Lubomir Dimistrov - TUS), Activities done and ones to be done, Next steps in the work plan
13:30 – 14:00 - Coffee Break
14:00 – 15:30 - WP 4 – Implementation of the Labs (Valentina Grillea – bwcon), Activities already done and the ones to be done, TTT Recap + Local Regional implementations and Preparation to TTT follow up meeting (10th October); Lab impressions with pictures and a few comments to each lab (by each lab responsible); Next steps in the work plan
15:30 – 16:30 - WP 5 – Entrepreneurship Training (Florin Popescu – UDJG), Activities already done and the ones to be done, Next steps in the work plan
16:45 – 17:00 - Coffee Break
17:00 – 17:45 - WP 6 – Strategy & Sustainability (Milan Solaja - VOICT), Main Goal/Objective & Target Group, Activities already done and the ones to be done, Work plan & Next Steps
17:45 – 20:00 - Social event
From 20:00 - Consortium dinner

2nd day: Tuesday, 10th October 2017

Train-the-Trainer-Workshop (DEMOLA)
Agenda and preparation activities

3rd day: Wednesday, 11th October 2017
09:00 – 09:15 - Reception
09:15 – 09:45 - WP 1 – Project Manager (Christian Geiger – City Ulm), Main Goal/Objective, Activities already done and the ones to be done, Tool and regular meetings, Work plan & Next Steps, Discussion with the partners
09:45 – 10:15 - WP 1 – Financial Management (Sabrina Richter – City of Ulm), Overview financial situation, Discussion with the partners
10:15 – 10:30 - Coffee Break
10:30 – 11:15 - WP 2 – Communication (CTU), Main Goal/Objective, Activities already done and the ones to be done, Work plan & Next Steps
11:15 – 11:30 - Decision taken & Next Steps (Christian Geiger, City Ulm)
11:30 – 11:55 - Impression of the Meetings
11:55 – 12:00 - End of the event, get together
From 13:00 – SCOM Meeting

Prof. Lubomir Dimitrov (lubomir_dimitrov@tu-sofia.bg)
Prof. Milka Vicheva, PhD (mvicheva@tu-sofia.bg)
Assoc. Prof. Pancho Timov (pkt@tu-sofia.bg)
Assist. Prof. Vladislav Ivanov (vvi@tu-sofia.bg)
Meng Kiril Nikolov, PhD Student (knikolov90@tu-sofia.bg)

08.07.2017

Prof. Lubomir Dimitrov (lubomir_dimitrov@tu-sofia.bg)
Prof. Milka Vicheva, PhD (mvicheva@tu-sofia.bg)
Assoc. Prof. Pancho Timov (pkt@tu-sofia.bg)
Assist. Prof. Vladislav Ivanov (vvi@tu-sofia.bg)
Meng Kiril Nikolov, PhD Student (knikolov90@tu-sofia.bg)

Today, 06.06.2017, a conference meeting via Skype hosted by bwcon was held with all participants in the project.

The following topics were discussed:

• The progress of the project and the implementation of the regional labs;
• A special attention was paid at the responsible people for the project to always remind the others for the deadlines;
• A new project meeting was scheduled for the period 09-11 October in Bucharest, Romania.

Prof. Lubomir Dimitrov (lubomir_dimitrov@tu-sofia.bg)
Prof. Milka Vicheva, PhD (mvicheva@tu-sofia.bg)
Assoc. Prof. Pancho Timov (pkt@tu-sofia.bg)
Assist. Prof. Vladislav Ivanov (vvi@tu-sofia.bg)
Meng Kiril Nikolov, PhD Student (knikolov90@tu-sofia.bg)

Train the Trainer (TTT) workshop was held in the period 24-26.05.2017 in Demola Budapest, Hungary, which is part of the WP4 - Implementation of the Labs, where the trainers were familiarized with the procedures how to pick the projects/cases, how to create and manage the teams and what the recommended deadlines are.

Introduction of the event:
The hosts of the workshop were the Demola founders – Ville Kairamo and Jarmo Tuominiemi. The workshop itself was being held in Demola Budapest, which is a big hall, filled with equipment for the students to use on a daily basis for free. The idea was for the lab managers to see a very good example of a regional lab implementation.

Important milestones:

• The regional labs must be ready before October 1-st.
• The posters and the door sign must be ready before June 1-st.
• The next project meeting will be held in Bucharest, Romania in October, 2017.
• The regional implementation plan must be ready before September 1-st.
• The recommended deadline for creating a solution is 5 months.
• Some important terms: strategic forecasting, flexibility, agile, removal of waste.
• Face-to-face meetings between the team members only – using Skype will not be enough.
• Stimulate the students to think “outside of the box”.
• “Fall in love with the problem, not with the solution.” – Ville Kairamo

Prof. Lubomir Dimitrov (lubomir_dimitrov@tu-sofia.bg)
Prof. Milka Vicheva, PhD (mvicheva@tu-sofia.bg)
Assoc. Prof. Pancho Timov (pkt@tu-sofia.bg)
Assist. Prof. Vladislav Ivanov (vvi@tu-sofia.bg)
Meng Kiril Nikolov, PhD Student (knikolov90@tu-sofia.bg)