Networking with other EU clusters; Assistance in project designing and drafting; Proposals assessment with experts from APRE (Italian Research Agency). -
Business networking.
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Corporate Meeting.
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Entrepreneurial Training: Special events and workshops; Technological seminars; Sectoral Bar camp; Courses on Project designing and financial reporting.
Legal framework: Torino Wireless is a non-for-profit foundation, while the ICT Cluster is a non-for-profit temporary association (a 5 years renewable agreement) made of different public and private entities (non-for-profit organisations, universities, big companies, research centers, SMEs, Innovative Start-UPs) which operate all in the same sector Financial framework: TW was created in 2003 thanks to an initial grant of 26M € and have a budget of about 3,5M € a year. Their incomes come mainly from public contributions and market revenues, with a residual money from member fees. The income sources are: 60% from national or regional public grants, 30% from the market (innovation services selling) and the remaining 10% from members fees. The ICT Cluster is funded by the Piemonte Region, that awarded to the 12 cluster a 5 years grant (2009-2014) of 90 M€ (10M€ for 2012)
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Evaluation of the practice
Main Achievements From 2003 to 2008, the Torino Wireless Foundation helped 390 companies in their technological, managerial and commercial activities, to growth and succeed on the market. All the services provided by the Foundation were activated together with public and private partners, that not only represent funding institution but they are also concretely involved in the promotion and development of the cluster. One of the most brilliant achievement relates to the Foundation‟s capability of attraction and mobilization of financial resources: totally it has been able to attract 117 million euro (32 from public and 85 from private organizations). The most relevant results obtained in the period 2003-2008 can be summed as follows: -
Companies acceleration: 909 interventions for € 17,9 million of services provided.
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Raising of resources from National, Regional or EU funds to realize collaborative projects involving SMEs and Large Companies for a total amount of € 33 million invested.
www.innovage-project.eu
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