The kick-off meeting of the project ‘Young Entrepreneurs Startup School – YESS” was hosted by Polytechnic University of Bari, in Bari, Italy, on 10-11/09/2018. YESS project is implemented within the “Interreg V- A Greece-Italy Programme 2014-2020”.
YESS (Young entrepreneurship Startup School) project aims at creating the first Cross-Border (CB) incubator within the Regions of Apulia, Achaia, Ionian Islands and Epirus. The overall objective of the project is the promotion of the entrepreneurial spirit and the incubation of new companies, encouraging the economic development of the regions involved and the exchange of knowledge and competences between partners and stakeholders. The specific objective consists in the creation and the development of a CB incubator for innovative start-ups in the fields of: tourism, design, blue growth and e-health. The incubator will provide most of its services both through a physical and a virtual environment, which will foster new business ideas, encouraging the co-design and cooperation within students, researchers, startuppers and entrepreneurs, maximizing the benefits of the Web 2.0 technologies and using an open access innovation approach. The project grounds its roots in the theories of social capital and wants to maximize the potential of social networking, identifying it as a flywheel of entrepreneurial success.
All partners of the project were present:
- LP: Polytechnic University of Bari – Italy (Prof. Eugenio Di Sciascio, Rector of Polytechnic University of Bari)
- P2: Universus CSEI – Italy (Prof. Carmine Viola, President)
- P3: Chamber of Commerce of Bari – Italy (Cosmo Albertini, International Relations)
- P4: University of Ioannina – Greece (Dr Yorgos Goletsis, Assistant Professor)
- P5: ERFC – Greece (Mr. Nikolas Petropoulos, President)
Project Partners discussed about the analytical project’s plan, roles, responsibilities, expected results and deliverables.