During the 23rd and 24th of June 2016, Cluj-Napoca was the host of the Transylvanian Clusters International Conference – Open Innovation. The event aims to focus on the importance of open innovation, bringing together the research and innovation with the business field and citizens through the concrete results presented at the event and to encourage the direct matchmaking between stakeholders, in order to develop future projects for our communities. Cluj-Napoca is the most effervescent Romanian city with a very active business community, where the youth represents 20% of the active population.
Through its projects and vision the city strives to become the European Capital of Innovation 2017/2018. This year, TCI Network will be co-organizer, adding more value with their expertise at larger international & regional level, representing more countries and regions. At the conference will be present the most representative national and international clusters abroad from various fields of expertise. The national and international speakers will bring their contribution to a better understanding of collaboration and the Open Innovation concept for the clusters’ community.
Transylvanian Clusters International Conference is an annual event that resulted from the necessity of creating joint innovative projects, with a major impact on the community, but also on the industries that the member entities are a part of. The conference will reunite more than 250 participants from Romania and abroad, and they will have the occasion to discuss or to initiate new projects, within the matchmaking sessions, the objective being for the event to end with at least 5 practical initiatives.
Within the 8 workshops, the members of the clusters from Romania and other European countries, representatives of the business environment, public authorities and research institutions will learn about good practices and they will analyze, together with the invited experts, the impact of open innovation and collaboration between different ecosystems, derived from a series of case studies.
In a city of technology, this conference will bring forward the local innovative projects and their subsequent mapping will be included into the race for Cluj European Capital of Innovation. Initiatives like creating artificial blood, smart tourism and smart furniture applications, e-Health, software and other high added value innovative products, are just a part of the domains that are going to be included in the application of Cluj European Capital of Innovation.
Transylvanian Clusters International Conference is also an instrument that stimulates collaboration between companies, universities, research institutions, local authorities and various service entities.
The event is an initiative of the Consortium of Clusters from Northern Transylvania, and it reunites more than 260 entities from the business environment, research and development, and public authorities. The companies represented by these clusters have more than 18.000 employees and a cumulated turnover of more than 1,3 billion Euros.
The co-organiser of the conference is the TCI network and it implements this type of event for the first time in Romania. TCI is a global leader with cluster and competitiveness expertise, with more than 9000 experts from 110 countries.
Main topics
- ICT and Creative industries
- Agrofood & Agriculture
- Innovation in the furniture industry
- New materials
- Energy efficiency
- Related industries
- Other industries
SOFTECH is glad that the Clusters Consortium from Northern Transylvania managed to organize an event focused on open innovation and cooperation. It is important for a city like Cluj-Napoca who is an active software development and tech hub to host such events and to foster dialogue around the critical topics of the industry.
