Today, Maria da Graça Carvalho delivered a keynote speech at the 4th edition of The European Business & Innovation Centre Network EBN Annual Policy Conference that took place in Brussels, under the title Transforming European Start-ups into International Gazelles - a journey to the future with EC-BIC's entrepreneurs.
EBN is the leading pan-European network that incorporates 250+ Business & Innovation Centres (BICs), innovation-based incubators, entrepreneurship & innovation centres, business accelerators, clusters and similar organisations. EBN was set up in 1984 as a joint initiative of the European Commission (DG Regio & DG Enterprise) and European industry leaders to deploy and develop a dedicated business support instrument described as BIC (Business Innovation Centre). BICS are organisations that promote entrepreneurship and innovation, throughout specialised services and tools of mentoring & coaching, market entry & business development, investment readiness & internationalization. Their aim is to boost economic regional development and stimulate the emergence of high-growth companies that drive innovation and job creation.
The event welcomed 300 delegates, policy & decision makers, innovation intermediaries (EBN extended community), investors & other European networks, international partners, stakeholders , SMEs and entrepreneurs.