On 7-8 May in Milan, 21 entrepreneurs (representing 15 start-ups) from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon, and 7 coaches gathered for some intense training on business modelling, IPR and investment readiness. The Innovators Academy was the very first event of THE NEXT SOCIETY Start-up Booster track.

 Over two days, the participating entrepreneurs got to learn best practices from business and investment experts/investors from Italy, France, Belgium and the USA and to work on their company presentations. The various workshops on Business Modelling, Go To Market Strategy, Intellectual Property, Investment Readiness, Investor Presentation and Presentation Skills helped them to rethink their business model, to reconsider patenting, to improve their pitch presentation and to work on their presentation soft skills.

The entrepreneurs particularly appreciated the one2one mentoring sessions with the coaches where they got the opportunity to sit for 30 minutes and rework on their pitch presentation in a very in-depth manner, in preparation for the second day pitching competition. These intense working sessions allowed the entrepreneurs to put in practice the theory they had just learnt in the various workshops, to fine-tune their presentations, to understand better in a face-to-face discussion what investors expect from them and to rethink the way of presenting their product(s) and/or service(s).

The 15 start-ups competed at a small pitching competition. The best two were to win the award of “The Most Investable Company” which directly selected them for the upcoming Power Dinner with Investors activity to be held during the BigBooster competition 2018 in Lyon where they will get the chance to meet and pitch their projects to investors and raise funds.

THE NEXT SOCIETY Innovators Academy was organised by the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) with the support of the European Business and Innovation Centres Network (EBN) and the Middle East Business Angels Network (MBAN).

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Press release

THE NEXT SOCIETY brochure