InnoCenter Bulgaria
(InnoCenter BG)
Vision Statement
What is InnoCenter BG?
InnoCenter BG is an open community, focused on problem solving, which supports the digitisation of the industrial enterprises in Bulgaria and their transformation into Industry 4.0 companies by improving their capabilities to innovate their business and production processes, products or services.
To support its members in solving their technological challenges, InnoCenter BG will provide opportunity for collaborative work and on-the-job training of their staff in the field of technical and design thinking capabilities, access to technology infrastructure and additional talent and expert capacity for their Proof of Concept (PoC) projects. The main mechanism of delivering value to its members is the creation of project working groups on defining and solving specific technological challenges.
Through creating an ecosystem and enabling the cooperation between large companies, SMEs and young entrepreneurs, InnoCenter BG acts as a mediator bringing together suppliers, developers and clients to generate new challenges, generate innovative solutions or facilitate the transfer of proved solutions.
InnoCenter BG also provides benefits to:
Our core competences and focus areas:
What we do?
In addition, InnoCenter BG's portfolio includes the services that the members provide in their own business activities.
Our working principles:
How to become part of InnoCenter BG?
To participate and use the InnoCenter BG activities as benefits, the companies should become members.
What we strive to achieve by 2020?
By 2020 InnoCenter BG must have established itself as one-stop-shop that helps industrial enterprises in Bulgaria to become more competitive in their business/production processes, and products/services using innovative digital technologies and novel business models.
The center will apply for the status of Digital Innovation Hub (2018-2020):
Intermediary objectives:
How we will succeed?
How we will operate?
InnoCenter BG will rely primarily on private funding, coming from large companies (members) that will generate business and tech-challenges to be solved by the InnoCenter BG.
The main mechanism of providing value to its members is the ability to form unlimited number of working groups from the different target groups in the InnoCenter BG (large companies, SMEs, innovators and entrepreneurs). On the principle of cooperation, the working groups will be formed to solve particular challenges of interest of the working group founder(s). InnoCenter BG will provide the service of assembling a team of experts, innovators, experienced managers in delivering innovation solutions to enable the realisation of PoC projects.
In addition to that InnoCenter BG will provide training, co-working opportunities, events and access to data and new ideas, which raise the general awareness of the challenges and opportunities of digital change for business enterprises.
Members will provide financing or fundraise to support the projects they initiate. A part of these funds will cover the maintenance of InnoCenter BG under full transparency and control by the members.
The value we provide
InnoCenter BG provides to its members:
Major focus for Members will be the industrial sectors in Bulgaria. InnoCenter BG will support companies from energy and utilities, financial and banking sector, manufacturing and public sector and thus will cover three of the four thematic priority areas of the national Strategy for Smart Specialization 2014-2020, i.e. ICT, mechatronics and health industry and biotechnologies.
For SMEs, InnoCenter BG will serve as incubator and training center:
Specifically, to Bulgarian innovation ecosystem at Sofia Tech Park, InnoCenter BG will enhance the capacity of business-to-business support, offering both technology development and soft business services in the field of IoT and digitisation of industrial enterprises, transforming them into Industry 4.0 companies.
How is InnoCenter BG structured?
Members’ General Assembly
Founders sign an InnoCenter Founding Agreement that is open to new members. Thus, the initial composition of the General Assembly of the participants is formed. Acceptance of new members is to take place with the notification of the existing ones. If there is no objection, the applicant is deemed to be accepted. A new member can not be accepted when his participation is objected by an existing participant. With the admission, each participant becomes a member of the General Assembly.
Representative
The InnoCenter BG as such has no legal personality. With the Founding Agreement one of the participants will be authorized to represent the InnoCenter BG with the appropriate rights and duties and a three-year mandate.
Coordinator
The representative signs a contract to manage the activities of the InnoCenter BG with one of the participants. The contract shall prescribe the respective rights and obligations and a one-year term.
Advisers
The InnoCenter BG activity is supported by counselors. These are prominent specialists in their professional fields and persons with public influence who share the values and objectives of the InnoCenter BG and would like to contribute to their realization.
Experts Pool
In order to be able to achieve its goals, the InnoCenter BG will have a wide range of highly qualified experts in different fields. The Pool will include experts from participants' or partners' companies of the InnoCenter BG, or individuals and will facilitate the finding of the necessary specialists for each individual project.
Working Groups
The InnoCenter organizes its activities through permanent working groups and project working groups. Permanent working groups are set up to apply for European programs, Industry 4.0, on digitization of education, and on the priorities set out in the Vision. Project working groups are a key mechanism for providing benefits to participants. For each project the InnoCenter BG creates a separate working group, including advisers and experts, as well as the contracting participant.
Activities
The core activity of the InnoCenter BG is Proof of Concept projects. At the request of the participants, the InnoCenter BG organizes trainings and events.
Partners
The InnoCenter BG will partner with various organizations sharing its values and goals.
Financing
The InnoCenter BG relies primarily on private funding provided by large participating companies for the projects initiated by them. Part of these funds provides the funding of the InnoCenter BG with full transparency and control by the participants. Another major source of funding are European and other programs where the InnoCenter BG or Participants Pools will apply. Start-up funding is provided by an entry fee of €1000 for each participant. Participants, as well as other supporters, can make donations to the InnoCenter BG.
January 2018
Copyright ©, 2018 InnoCenter Bulgaria.