Best Practices in Science Based Incubators - SUMMIT Pilot Project

Nicosia, Cyprus - December 13, 2004. As a partner in the consortium of SUMMIT (Business Incubator Management Training Institute), an EC funded project which aims to develop a new training course for developing the skills of business incubator managers and other stakeholders in business incubation (such as public authorities, venture capitalists and/or other sponsors), Athena High Technology Incubator participated at the pilot session of the SUMMIT training course which was held at the University of Oxford during the Science Alliance conference on "Best Practices in Science Based Incubators on December 8th, 9th and 10th.

During a condensed pilot session, the four initial modules were presented to a selected group of individuals. In particular, Rustam Lalkaka (CSES/BTDS) presented Module 1 on"Incubation Concepts and Preparations to Start", Phanos Pitiris (Athena High Technology Incubator) presented Module 2 on "Planning to establish an incubator", Marios Argyris (First Elements Ventures) presented Module 3 on "Role and Responsibilities of Stakeholders, Board, Management" and Pantelis Dimitriou (First Elements Ventures) presented Module 4 on "Synergies between Incubator, Techpark, University, Research and Business"

The members of the consortium were able to draw very useful feedback from the attendants of the pilot session to be utilized for the further development of the course.

Besides Athena High Technology Incubator Ltd., partners in SUMMIT include First Elements Ventures Ltd.(contractor/coordinator) a member of the SFS Group (CYPRUS), the International Association of Science Parks (SPAIN), the premier international forum of science and technology Parks, the Centre for Strategy & Evaluation Services (UK), a management Consultancy that has recently completed an EU Enterprise benchmarking incubators’ study, Zernike Group B.V. (NETHERLANDS),dynamic international company that manages technology parks, incubators and seed capital funds, LOGOTECH S.A. (GREECE), a consultancy firm with main expertise in Technology and Innovation policy and management and Infoproject S.A. (GREECE), a software development company. CSES will be collaborating with Dr. Rustam Lalkaka, global pioneer in the field of small business support and incubator development.

Athena High Technology Incubator Ltd. (AHTI) is an international for profit business incubator with focus on seed and early stage companies in Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). Through its infrastructure, provision of value added services, close ties with venture capitalists and partnerships with internationally acclaimed organizations, AHTI steers the tenant companies operationally and strategically so as to accelerate their development and drive them to sustained, profitable growth. For more information, please contact Svetlana Kalogera.