The latest edition of the event “Present Yourself – Foster new business opportunities with cross-sectorial collaborations” brought together around 100 participants on 26 March.
The aim of this cross-sector edition was to give participants from three clusters – AutoMobility, CleanTech and Materials & Manufacturing – the opportunity to briefly introduce themselves and describe their activities.
“Opening up these ‘Present Yourself’ events, which were previously more targeted to sectors other than manufacturing, will undeniably help to foster innovation among our companies,” says Caroline Muller, manager of the Luxembourg Materials & Manufacturing Cluster. “Skills and technologies are indeed becoming more and more transversal and we have very innovative and promising companies in Luxembourg. Our role is to present them and to create links between them and the more traditional sectors.”
Companies presenting themselves
Such a cross-sector approach covering the construction industry, environment, healthtech, etc., is likely to enable companies to identify new growth drivers, according to Charles-Albert Florentin, manager of the Luxembourg CleanTech Cluster. “This can simply mean developing an activity that has remained marginal until now, adapting products/services to an existing demand in another sector or launching a new activity alone or in partnership in a sector of the future.”
The event, which started with a short introduction on the extension of investment support to stimulate business investment in the COVID-19 period, also highlighted the FIT-4-NMP project, a recently launched support action funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme in the fields of nanotechnology, advanced materials and new manufacturing processes (NMP).
Six companies then presented their activities and highlighted the wealth of opportunities for cross-disciplinary cooperation.
“The crisis we are going through is pushing companies to reinvent themselves in order to be more resilient in the face of imponderables,” notes Anthony Auert, manager of the Luxembourg AutoMobility Cluster. “Thanks to the cross-sector ‘Present Yourself’ events, Luxinnovation helps companies become aware of new opportunities to diversify and collaborate with Luxembourg’s innovative players.”
More events of this format are planned to be organised in the coming months.