The II Innovation Summit organized by Andorra Research and Innovation (AR+I) was held on Monday at the Andorra Park Hotel and was attended by around a hundred people. The event served to approve the inclusion of the commissions made up of experts from the country in Talent, Business and Financing, Infrastructure and Ecosystem in the National Strategy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Andorra Startup platform was also presented, jointly promoted by AR+I and Andorra Business, and the awards for the 2022 Planetech Challenge were given out.

The Minister for Presidency, Economy and Enterprise, Jordi Gallardo, welcomed the attendees and explained the advances made by the country to become an attractive environment for open innovation. “One of the priorities of the last few years has been the development and positioning of Andorra as an attractive and competitive environment for open innovation and entrepreneurship, one of the vertebral elements to manage this has been the Innovation Strategy, which today accomplishes one of its goals with its ratification and inclusion by a large part of Andorra´s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem”, said the minister.

Gallardo also presented the launching of the Andorra Startup website, an open access platform that generates a map with the most relevant actors in the Andorran ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. “It will allow for the ecosystem´s continuous identification and mapping, both entrepreneurial and innovative in Andorra”, he stated.

Next up were the State Secretary for Economic Diversification and Innovation, Marc Galabert, and the director of Andorra Research and Innovation, Marc Pons, who presented the actions fruit of the work carried out over the last few months by the country´s experts that participated in the commissions for Talent, Business and Financing, Infrastructure and Ecosystem. During the act the signature of adhesion of the commissions to the National Strategy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship was formalized.

Some of the priority actions to be carried out in a first phase are the detection of senior expat talent residing in Andorra to connect them with the ecosystem, the deployment of formation programs specialized in innovation and entrepreneurship, the promotion of support programs in the business network to foment scale-up policies through the structuring of procedures, research projects and open innovation, the identification of sectorial challenges and the development of projects which give answer to them, and the launching of a public-private program of financing for research projects and innovation in initial stages that are working on sectorial challenges and the country.

During the II Innovation Summit, the director of AR+I, Marc Pons, presented a main prize and two honorable mentions to the winner and finalists of the Planetech challenge, promoted jointly with Innovation Institute of Israel last May. According to Pons, “the challenge enjoyed good international response with over 15 startups applying, all of whom interested in pivoting their technological innovations to provide solutions in the fields of natural risks and climate change”. The winner was Hydrometeorological Innovative Solutions (hyds), that will carry out a pilot test in Andorra, and the two honorable mentions were for Emnotion and Earthpulse, with whom AR+I will explore the possibility of carrying out a project in the country.

The specialist in business and social transformation, business development and digital culture, Genís Roca, closed the event with a conference titled ‘Innovative and entrepreneurial society: where are we headed?’.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Andorra Business
Author: Andorra Business

Andorra Business és l’agència de promoció i desenvolupament econòmic d’Andorra. Impulsar sectors clau per a la diversificació de l’economia, captar i acompanyar la inversió estrangera i local, donar suport a les empreses andorranes per ser més competitives, i facilitar l’aterratge al país de noves empreses, són algunes de les nostres prioritats.