Inspiring seminar on the elaboration of business and exploitation plans concluded under the PROteuS project

A constructive seminar on the elaboration of business and exploitation plans took place on the 11^th of June 2019, from 10:00 until 15:30 at the premises of ARIS (A Really Inspiring Space) in Limassol.

The seminar was held in the framework of the EU-funded PROteuS and was co-organized by MarInEM and ARIS for the existing and potential members of the Cypriot Node of the Mediterranean Maritime Surveillance Cluster. In particular, it aimed at providing advice and guidance to Cypriot SMEs, start-ups, researchers and entrepreneurs in the elaboration of business and exploitation plans for their technologies, products, services and ideas.

The seminar was divided into 3 parts. In the first part, Ms. Sofia Maragkidou, Researcher in MarInEM, presented the PROteuS project which aims at the establishment of a Mediterranean Maritime Surveillance (MED MS) Cluster that will foster innovation and R&D capacities, knowledge and technology transfer, as well as transnational cooperation among the involved MS actors.

In the second part, Ms. Eliza Loucaidou, Manager of ARIS presented ARIS and its mission and activities. ARIS is a start-up accelerator located in Limassol. It offers entrepreneurs the necessary structure, mentorship and network so that they launch successful business ventures and expedite their go-to-market speed. After that, Ms. Loucaidou explained the concept and importance of innovation and described how businesses can be innovative by providing specific examples.

The third part of the seminar was divided into 6 sessions, encompassing a variety of issues that organizations face with regard to the management and implementation of their activities. In particular, Ms. Anthi Chatzikyriakou, ARIS Operations Officer presented and described the business model canvas that organizations and especially companies should consider before producing a business plan. Additionally, Mr. Kyriacos Charalambides, Director of the Financial Advisory Department of Deloitte presented the main components of a business plan and provided guidelines for writing an effective business plan, including its financial section. After that, Ms. Loucaidou described the available EU funding programs and instruments that companies/organizations could exploit for their RTDI activities, the main principles of EU grants, including the expenses that they can cover and the typical process of developing a proposal for EU funding. Afterwards, Ms. Mary Michaelidou, Assistant Manager at the Marketing and Communications Department of Deloitte took the floor by describing the steps and by providing guidelines for the development of a successful marketing strategy. Moreover, Ms. Rania Vrondou, Manager at the Tax and Legal Department of Deloitte along with Ms. Marianna Moran, Assistant Manager at the Tax and Legal Department of Deloitte presented the tax and legal aspects of innovation. In particular, Ms. Vrondou focused on the importance of IPR rights protection such as trademarks, patents, designs and copyrights, while Ms. Moran described the current corporate tax regime and the new IP regime in Cyprus which in certain cases foresees tax relief or provides tax incentives to organizations with RTDI activities as well as to investors that wish to invest in innovative SMEs.

The seminar was interactive, with Q&A rounds after each presentation. The participants found the seminar very interesting and informative and expressed the wish to have such seminars more often, engaging more stakeholders from the industry, the academia, the public sector and the civil society.

All the presentations delivered at the seminar can be found below:

Special thanks to ARIS start-up accelerator and its team for hosting the event at their premises, for assisting with the organization of the seminar and for sharing their expertise with the audience.