The 6th edition of the EIC T2M – Innovation Discovery Training took place last week and Louise Breideband from GUF took the opportunity to improve her entrepreneurship skills and to learn from a science entrepreneur.
EIC T2M – Innovation Discovery Training is part of the European Innovation Council EIC Tech to Market (T2M) Entrepreneurship Programme, which covers a wide range of activities that have been improving the ability of EIC beneficiaries, preparing them to take the leap towards the market. This program aims to assist deep-tech researchers supported by the EIC Pathfinder and the EIC Transition, who have entrepreneurial aspirations, in transforming their technological solutions into marketable innovations. It seeks to accelerate their science startup projects while helping them build strong value propositions and viable business models.
In this context, the 6th edition of the EIC T2M – Innovation Discovery Training took place in two sessions of 4 hours, the first on 12th February and the second one on 16th February, with the objective to help researchers get a first idea of what it means to start a venture out of a scientific breakthrough.
In practical terms, these two half-day online training sessions consisted of collective coaching sessions designed to help deep-tech scientists learn how to effectively present their entrepreneurial ideas and gain a fundamental understanding of valuable entrepreneurship skills. They discussed and received feedback on entrepreneurial concepts from both experts and fellow attendees, on subjects such as business models, identification of customers, market sizing, Intellectual Property and funding. Concretely, exchange with market and industrial stakeholders helped participants to assess the value proposition and their product-market fit.
One important pillar of the course is giving researchers some tools and advice on effective ways to present their entrepreneurial ideas in a pitch format. In this sense, on the first day, participants got practical guidance from competent professionals and experts, among them from Jerôme Michon, who had previously participated in the program and had successfully launched his own start-up, InSpek. The testimony from someone who became an entrepreneur from the academic background added a layer of practical relevance and inspiration to the training.
The course was informative and enriching and offered helpful insights into the path from innovative ideas to market-readiness products. Also, having real-life feedback from an entrepreneur, done interactively, was a real plus.