The good practices of the CILIFO project in the Segovia Business Market

18.03.2020. On March 6th, 2020, the «Segovia Business Market» was held with the objective of attracting investment agents to the city of Segovia through a participative, dynamic and open forum in which companies, investors and entrepreneurs interact.

As part of the international positioning of the CILIFO brand and the CILIFO project, the FINNOVA Foundation participated in the «Segovia Business Market» to exhibit and publicize the good practices of the CILIFO project. This took place within the framework of the conference entitled «Investment alternatives and support for business and entrepreneurial development», given by the General Director of FINNOVA, Juan Manuel Revuelta, where he was able to present the CILIFO project, as well as to present the case of good practices of the «Firefighting Open Innovation Lab – CILIFO» incubator/accelerator, as an initiative for business development and entrepreneurship in the sector of forest fire prevention and extinction, adaptation and mitigation to climate change.

Within this framework, the CILIFO project was present in order to develop three of its main functions, contained in Activities 1 and 6, and entrusted to the FINNOVA Foundation, as a beneficiary partner of the project;

  1. Attracting entrepreneurs, start-ups and companies, as well as other agents of interest such as investors, collaborating entities, etc., in order to create sufficient mechanisms to promote open innovation in the sector of forest fire prevention and extinction, adaptation and mitigation to climate change;
  2. establish a networking network and a network of entrepreneurs, start-ups and companies interested in participating and taking advantage of the «Firefighting Open Innovation Lab» CILIFO incubator-accelerator; and
  3. provide the knowledge, exchange of good practices and technologies that will facilitate the development of the «CILIFO Technology Catalogue».

EIC Accelerator call for green companies – Green Deal

This specific EIC Accelerator call contributes to the implementation of the Green Deal objectives. It aims to encourage impact investment by supporting the development and market implementation of innovations that can put our socioeconomic systems on a more sustainable path. Projects must support the implementation of the Green Deal by contributing significantly (and proposals must quantitatively estimate that contribution) to at least one of the following sustainability objectives:

  1. Clean energy
  2. A sustainable industry
  3. Build and Renovate
  4. Sustainable mobility
  5. Biodiversity
  6. From the farm to the table
  7. Removing contamination

It is a call for proposals from 0.5 to 2.5M euros and is aimed at SMEs, start-ups, spin-offs established in European Union member countries or associated countries.

Type of aid: Non-refundable grant

Equipment available: 303.000.000 €

For more information: contact Finnova Foundation (adrian.noheda@finnova.eu)

The next EU LIFE Information and Networking day will be online, as a precaution, due to Coronavirus

19.03.2020. The European Commission is organising a Virtual Information Day on the LIFE 2020 call for project proposals. Due to the outbreak of coronavirus, as a precautionary measure, this event will now be a virtual conference, on 30 April 2020.

The event is open to potential applicants submitting project proposals on green technology, nature protection and climate action.

Centro Ibérico para la Investigación y Lucha contra Incendios Forestales (CILIFO) will be present, through the Finnova Foundation, at the next LIFE event as a project proposal on green technology, nature protection and climate action.

According to information on the website, the information session on the 2020 LIFE call will cover significant changes in the programme compared to previous years.

Main topics: Environmental technologies and solutions including water, waste, air quality, soil, forest, health, climate change adaptation; climate change mitigation; nature conservation and biodiversity; climate and environmental governance and information initiatives.

To participate in the event: https://www.sli.do/

The 3rd Coria Business Market gathers business owners and entrepreneurs in Seville

The 3rd Coria Business Market took place in the county Marismas del Guadalquivir in the metropolitan area of Seville. The main target of this event was informing business owners and entrepreneurs about the funding available in the European Union through venture capital investment models. In addition, getting to know how to get useful information for strategy in the frame of entrepreneurship and commercial networking.

Juanma Revuelta, CEO of Finnova Foundation, participated during the conference: “Opportunities in Europe for the development of territories and entrepreneurial drive”. He explained the projects in which the foundation participates, such as the Firefighting Open Innovation Lab in the field of forest fires and forest management, where they support entrepreneurial initiatives. Another one is the “Centro Ibérico para la Investigación y Lucha contra Incendios Forestales” (Iberian Centre for investigation and fight against forest fires), CILIFO for short, has a 24,6-million-euro total budget. 75% from this budget is financed by a cooperation program between Spain and Portugal called NAPOCTEP (Programa de Cooperación Transfronteriza Interreg VA España-Portugal – Interreg POCTEP (2014-2020). It is a transboundary project that aims to transform the Napoleonic heritage in a touristic quality product, that is also sustainable and that can create wealth and jobs in regions like Castilla y León in Spain and others in Portugal, that is under the threat of losing population and aging. Another project is the Startup Europe Awards, an opened innovative instrument that enables enterprises to identify talent start-ups that can tackle current challenges in different fields. It is also an instrument of social awareness through Media Startup Alliance, which also counts with European media participation.

Finally, Juan Manuel Revuelta clarified how does Finnova work and the projects in which he collaborates, as well as the ones he has developed. During the forum, he also described: “what we do in Finnova Foundation is try to ease and extract access to European funds for the development of territories. This is how we help startups develop together with local governments.” He also highlighted that currently “there are 15 million euros of European funding that has not been spent”, but administrations, provincial councils and mayors of Spain still have time to reschedule these funds and use them before 2023.

The Firefighting Open Innovation Lab as an example of innovation in entrepreneurship days for young people

05.02.2020. On February 4, 2020, a conference on Training, Employment and Young Entrepreneurship was organized at the Spanish Embassy in Brussels, by the Finnova Foundation.

The General Director of the Finnova Foundation, a beneficiary of the CILIFO project (Iberian Center for Research and Fight against Forest Fires), Juan Manuel Revuelta, participated in a day founded by the organization on Training, Employment and Young Entrepreneurship, on February 4th, 2020. The event, which took place in the LAB Space of the Spanish Embassy in Brussels, was held with the aim of bringing the private programs that support young people to new generations so that they can get to know first-hand the work that is being done from the different organizations. Finnova Foundation organized the event, aimed at Spanish youngsters residing in Belgium, in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy and the support of the Spanish Chamber.

The Iberian Center for Research and Fight against Forest Fires was one of the projects of entrepreneurship, self-employment and return of talent, presented as an example of job creation by the director of Finnova. CILIFO is a project approved by the Interreg POCTEP Program (2014-2020) Spain-Portugal, which belongs to the Thematic Objective 5 of the Program, which promotes adaptation to climate change in all sectors. In addition, it responds to the investment priority, with respect to the POCTEP Program, 5B: Promotion of investment to address specific risks and the guarantee of adaptation to disasters and development of catastrophe management systems. One of the objectives of the CILIFO project is the promotion of the creation of durable and quality employment in the area and the reduction of the economic cost of fires creating a rural economy linked to the landscape.

In addition, the Firefighting Open Innovation Lab was presented, it is an accelerator managed by Finnova Foundation, based in Seville, which has the vocation of promoting a network of incubators, under a private-public partnership scheme, worldwide, to capture innovation and technology that pursues the fight against forest fires and the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Currently, youth unemployment has reached more than worrying levels. The European Union and the governments of the different member countries have implemented measures to try to solve the problem through entities such as the European Social Fund and the European Commission. In addition, many autonomous and municipal governments such as the local deputies have carried out actions that can be an example of good practices to combat youth unemployment. The European Union is committed to creating more and better jobs and contributing to a more inclusive society. These objectives constitute the core of the Europe 2030 strategy, which seeks to generate smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the EU. In addition to the measures promoted by European institutions or by regional and municipal governments, there are also private programs, promoted by different organizations that aim to support young people and the fight against unemployment through entrepreneurship.