How to assess and access your company’s growth potential?

How to assess and access your company’s growth potential?

Webinar powered by NGI TETRA and NGI TruBlo.

When: 2 June 2022 | 15:00 CEST
Where: Online

Registration: https://meet.zoho.eu/iBWV0Wuwxw

As your customer base grows and you start to make a profit, it’s only natural to start thinking about your next steps and ask yourself: is it time to scale?
But where to start and what are the next steps to take? Scaling can be full of challenges and premature scaling is considered to be one of the main reasons why young companies fail.

At this webinar we will talk about:

  • What are the key questions to ask before scaling?
  • What is premature scaling?
  • What are the components of a good “ready to scale checklist”?

Speakers

Andrej Petrus (1).jpgAndrej Petrus is investment Manager @ ZAKA – venture capital family office investing primarily in the pre-seed and seed stage (50-500k EUR) in CEE region. Agile generalist with experiences in venture building for CEAi and M&A and Strategy consultancy for PwC in Prague. Assisting the Board of Directors of SLOVCA (Slovak Venture Capital and Private Equity Association) as Project Manager.
LinkedIn

Donnie Sc Lygonis works as an Innovation Strategist and Business Coach at KTH Innovation, the innovation office at The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He has been working with entrepreneurship and innovation for over 25 years, both running his own companies or helping others start theirs. He is an appreciated speaker on innovation and creativity, having spoken at 5 TEDx events and been part of 3 separate TV-series on innovation.
LinkedIn

KTH Readiness System

You will be introduced to the KTH Readiness System, a unique and effective approach for self-assessment of how far your project has evolved. There are many, many approaches how to getting an idea off the ground and transforming it into a real world. One approach which should be known more widely is the KTH Readiness Level. It is a simple, yet very effective and helpful approach to letting an idea evolve, step by step. The approach comes from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH).

Brief overview

Originally developed as a step-by-step development approach for technology at NASA, the KTH Readiness System has extended to seven dimensions that are relevant for every new idea. The key questions are: How ready is your idea to be used by customers, how far evolved are the development steps for the technology, the business model, the IPR, the team and the funding.

Each of these dimensions will be checked against a grade scale, which starts at one and has the highest level at nine. The scales are visualised as thermometers. The visualization is used as a simple tool to enable an assessment of the founders, potential funders and other stakeholders. The system is very simple to use and helps to align the many possible activities of a start-up into a logical build-up process. 

For illustration, here are the levels to work on for the business model. The process starts at the bottom, at level 1. In this process, an early, unclear business idea is gradually filled with assumptions, gradually described and then checked for viability through tests with potential clients. Based on the findings there is an added business model, early pricing and projections for revenue. 

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In total there are six Innovation Readiness Levels:

  • Customer Readiness Level (CRL): To confirm customer needs and interest
  • Technology Readiness Level (TRL): To develop and test the technology, product, service, or concept
  • Business Model Readiness Level (BRL): To establish that the concept can be financially, environmentally, and socially viable and feasible
  • IPR Readiness Level (IPRL): To clarify the legal and IP situation and secure relevant IP protection
  • Team Readiness Level ( TMRL): To secure the right competencies and align the team
  • Funding Readiness Level  (FRL): To secure the necessary funding to take the idea to the market

Value and benefits

The KTH Innovation Readiness Level is a tool with many applications that adds value for several users and stakeholders (idea owners, coaches, managers, and external partners). For example:

  • Snapshot of status and maturity – use the tool to quickly and without bias assess the maturity and current development status of an idea
  • Reality check –  the tool enables idea owners to more objectively define their progress across several important dimensions
  • Coaching and communication – offering clear and defined terminology and a visual model allow coaches, advisors, and idea owners to communicate effectively around the idea development. It also provides a structure for individual meetings as well as the entire process
  • Guidance – the model provides key steps and questions that need to be addressed and gives a clear roadmap for both coaches and idea owners throughout the process
  • Portfolio management – the possibility to quantify and visualise the development progress of the ideas in your entire portfolio can generate useful metrics that help your organisation to objectively and fairly allocate resources and in other ways control and guide your innovation support process

The model is built to align with and include the current best practices and well-known methodologies in innovation development such as the lean startup methodology, the business model/lean canvas, etc.

More info:
https://kthinnovationreadinesslevel.com

Virtual Info Session: Funding Opportunities for the Blockchain community – TruBlo

Virtual Info Session: Funding Opportunities for the Blockchain community – TruBlo

This is an invitation for everyone interested to join a short, one-hour virtual info session about TruBlo on November 24th, 13:00 to 14:00 CET. The focus will be on how to participate in the next open call of the project. The call will open on January 27, 2022, detailed information is available on the TruBlo homepage.

Who should apply for funding?

TruBlo offers an opportunity to fund your early-stage idea for trustable content on future blockchains. Target groups for participation are researchers, innovators, developers from academia, startups, high tech companies or natural persons.

Selected participants can get up to 175.000 euros for their project, equity-free. The total available amount of funding is 4,2 million euros for the entire TruBlo project.

TruBlo has defined two use cases to create a broad frame for selectable ideas:

  • Use case 1: Trust and reputation models on blockchains.
  • Use case 2: Proof-of-validity and proof-of-location.

The funding call is also divided into two phases:

  • The first phase has the aim to produce ground-breaking research results on one of the two selected use cases.
  • The second phase is where only selected teams will continue their innovation plan with extended funding, providing more tangible prototypes, closer to market and Minimum Viable Products (MVP).

For this event, TruBlo teams up with Berlin Partner, who are the organizers.

If you would like to learn more about the project and the open call please register by November 23 on the website below:

Funding opportunities for the Blockchain community | Cluster IKT (digital-bb.de)

The event will be held in English.

 

 

European Blockchain Convention 2021

European Blockchain Convention 2021

 

EBC will be entirely virtual this year, of course, as a result of the pandemic. Nevertheless, big events are helpful to see and experience how topics and sentiments evolve. TruBlo will be represented at the European Blockchain Conference through Montse Guardia, General Manager of Alastria, a partner in this project.

The panel will start on Friday, April 16, at 12:00 PM. Montse Guardia will share the discussion with Margherita Leder, COO, TMP Group and David Palmer, Blockchain Lead at Vodafone.

EBCvirtual is designed as a comprehensive one-week event filled with keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, one-to-one meetings and high-level networking (as much as it is possible with current restrictions).

Even if you don’t attend the conference – it’s worth your time to scroll through the (long) list of attendees. To some extend the mix of people shows the renewed interest in blockchain and virtual currencies. The conference managed to attract many interesting startups, mixed with representatives from larger firms and members of the EU political community.

Website: https://eblockchainconvention.com

Follow EBC on Twitter

The Twitter hashtag to follow outcomes from the conference is: #EBCvirtual

 

 

 

NGI Forum 2021: Building the Internet of Humans

NGI Forum 2021: Building the Internet of Humans

 

The NGI Forum 2021 is the flagship event for the initiative, and in 2021 it will happen on May 18-19. Participation is free. 

Why you should care? The NGI (Next Generation Internet) initiative is something special. NGI brings together people who want a different internet. One, where the single user has certain rights, does not have to fear data theft or worse. NGI is driven by an understanding that you can not overload a large, important system, because it will break.

What will be shown? The event will include a mix of specialists talks, open discussions and interactive workshops. Further, the NGI Forum is a showcase. Here entrepreneurs, researchers and others present their work and their approaches. The goal is to deliver technologies and services that respect European rights and values, leading to tangible benefits for both private and public organizations, as well as citizens.

Who should join? If you are an innovator, in an organisation large or small, in an established company or at a start-up or still studying – in any case it is interesting to join and interact with the NGI community.

How to attend? The 2021 NGI Forum will be an online event. Be part of it, save the date and join here:

Will TruBlo be present? Yes, TruBlo will co-organize a workshop. The details of when it happens will be published on this website and through the TruBlo newsletter.

More info: https://2021.ngiforum.eu

Join the NGI community. The NGI Community is a knowledge-sharing platform, to connect informally with fellow innovators, entrepreneurs and professionals. Join here, it’s free.

Online conference: How can we fight disinformation using data and technology?

Online conference: How can we fight disinformation using data and technology?

Organized by Fandango, an EU co-funded project, the event will focus on new approaches as well as the role of the EU ICT policies in this field.
How can we create new tools? How can AI be used to detect misinformation? Is there a way to expose falsified or misleading content?
On the agenda:
  • The role of the EU’s ICT policies to protect European values, markets and citizens against disinformation.
  • Rethinking the possibilities of data and technology in the fight against disinformation.
  • EU’s ICT ecosystem against disinformation: the challenges ahead

This is the full agenda.

The discussion is open to everybody. Feel free to share the invitation with others who might be interested.
When? 
March 26th, Friday at 09:00 am (CET)