• The Report
• The Statute SENSI (adopted 090508)
• Presentations:
  • Michael Printzos
  • Peter Harman
  • Barbara Harley

Brief summary:

MAY 9 -  Alexandar Palace, Skopje

SESSION 1
Michael Printzos from the ini-CUBATOR in Athens started with his presentation about Networked Incubation Services the Case of Greece. After that Peter Harman talked about Innovation and Entrepreneurship through Business Incubation: Issues and Challenges - a Perspective from the UK. After these two presentations a lively Q&A took place between the speakers and the participants of the session. Some conclusion and discussion points:

1. Bureaucracy is one of the main obstacles in Business Incubation
2. Incubators are often established with Government support, but should be run as a business
3. Incubation is about leading people and processes rather than just managing a building

SESSION 2
During the 2nd and 3rd SENSI Seminar the basis was created for the organizational and formal structure of the network. The importance for SENSI to have a legal status lies in the fact that this would enable it to engage in joint projects and to apply for funding for those projects as an actual network. Previous to this 4th SENSI meeting a draft statute had been circulated among members. Results from Session 2:

• 5 new members presented themselves (View their presentation)

  1. Business Incubator BIOS, Osijek, Croatia – Igor Medic
  2. Business Incubator Centre Vranje, Serbia - Ivana Stosic
  3. ini-CUBATOR, Athens, Greece – Michael Printzos
  4. Timisoara Software Business Incubator, Romania - Radu Ticiu
  5. Inceptum, Slovenia – Andrej Kos

• The SENSI Statute was adopted (Statute SENSI 090508)

• 7 board members were selected by the General Assembly
  1. Boris Curkovic – Chairman
  2. Ivana Stosic – Secretary
  3. Matej Rus – Treasury
  4. Belma Bajrami Kastrati –General member
  5. Nino Serdarovic – General member
  6. Verica Koracevic – General member
  7. Constantin Thiopoulos – General member

• And the first host of the SENSI secretariate was decided to be in Tuzla (view the offer of the Tuzla team)

May 10 - University Congress Centre, Ohrid

SESSION 3 
Ms. Barbara Harley has over 18 years experience in developing and managing incubators in the US, California, and Silicon Valley and 12 years with international incubation to attract and assist foreign companies. Her presentation and workshop contained very useful information for all incubator managers in the audience. She talked about the do’s and don’ts and gave practical tools to support start-up companies in an incubator. Ms. Harley illustrated many of the tips with examples of her experiences as an incubator manager. A short selection out of many valuable tips she gave:

1. Organise regular sales pitch events for your clients. (Tip for clients: try to sell the product, not the opportunity)
2. Your client companies need you most when they have the least money. Try to organise free advice via business angels or wealthy people with time (people who sold their company and want to get involved in new projects)
3. Include professional development of the incubator manager and staff in your budget.
4. Ask your client companies to share data with incubator staff, even after graduation. So you’re able to show the results and impact of your work. The incubator has to market itself with economic impact data and human interest stories.

1. SENSI website & online client/SME database (Moderator: Marieke Pluk, Spark)
   • Defined goal and functionalities of the online database (enhance regional cooperation between SMEs, innovation and matchmaking between SMEs and between SMEs and investors)
2. SENSI services (Moderator: Rozita Hristovska, Business Start-up Centre Bitola)
   • A basis for proposed activity “Manual and Standards for BSC/Incubators”
   • A basis for proposed activity “Regional Entrepreneurs Club”
3. Network program/strengthen the SENSI network (Moderator: Michel Richter, Spark)
   • List of problems that SENSI faces at the moment (visibility, unstable member attendance, no services yet to members)
   • List of objectives and activities to address problems and create activities
   • List of fundraising options for SENSI