FARCLIMATE partners met in the portuguese city of Fundão for the second Consortium Meeting during the 6th and 7th of June, 2024. 📅
During two very intense and productive days, partners did not only discuss about the progress of the project and next activities to be done, but had the opportunity to make some really interesting visits to:
🔷 Fundão’s innovation ecosystem
🔋 Fundão’s biomass power plant
🌿 Carvalhal Biodiversity Station
✨ Fundão AgroTech Centre and Seminary Experimental Farm
On Day 1, the visit to Fundão’s Innovation Ecosystem was truly enlightening! 🚀🌱
To start, TNE made a brief presentation about technologies, projects and services provided worldwide, incuding the next one, a Biofuel powerplant in Silvares, a village in Fundão.
Partners explored the Business and Shared Services Centre, Business Spot, A Praça Business Incubator, and FabLab Aldeias do Xisto. These hubs have been pivotal in attracting ICT companies, creating jobs, and supporting startups in this rural town of less than 15,000 inhabitants.
🔸The Business and Shared Services Centre, conceived as the engine of the local innovation and investment strategy, has attracted 14 ICT companies and created over 1,000 highly qualified jobs. In just 4 years, it has boosted an integrated ecosystem generating 68 startups and supporting numerous private investment projects focused on R&D, professional conversion initiatives, and digital skills.
🔸Business spot aims to centralize in a single space all the information of interest for entrepreneurs in the exercise of their economic activity, from their legal obligations to business opportunities. The concept is very similar to the Lojas do Cidadão (Citizens’ Shops), but in this case the space is exclusively for companies. It is, therefore, a new model of business service, focused on the interests and needs of the entrepreneur, concentrating the answers to the business world in a single point of contact. The aim is to make it easier for entrepreneurs to access information and to promote interaction with central and local public administration.
🔸Polynucleated Urban Enterprise and Business Incubator A Praça is an incubator and accelerator of companies and businesses that integrates the national network of incubators and is certified for the various national programmes to support entrepreneurship. It has supported more than 80 startups and projects and has created about 150 new jobs.
🔸FabLab Aldeias do Xisto is a prototyping and digital fabrication laboratory in Fundão that is part of the Fab Labs’ worldwide network. The experience, technology and space provided represent the opportunity for students, citizens, researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs to become familiar with digital fabrication, create synergies and contribute to the development of new solutions adapted to the territory and companies.
During this first day partners also toured the 15 MWe biomass plant of 15 MWe, located in the industrial zone of Fundão, that incinerates waste wood (pine and eucalyptus chips) in a biomass boiler to produce superheated steam. This steam drives a steam turbine to generate electricity that is sold to the grid.
Partners ended they day visiting the Carvalhal Biodiversity Station, located in Souto da Casa, a parish in the municipality of Fundão, Portugal. This area is notable for its rich natural environment and historical significance. The Carvalhal Biodiversity Station focuses on preserving the local biodiversity, particularly within the natural landscape of the Serra da Gardunha region.
On Day 2, partners had the chance to visit the Fundão AgroTech Centre and the Seminary Experimental Farm:
🔸 Fundão AgroTech Centre aims to affirm the territory as a living laboratory for the development, testing and demonstration of technology for agriculture, integrating with other relevant infrastructures in terms of prototyping and development, advanced training and acceleration of new ideas and businesses. It aims to promote networking, namely with a wide range of regional producers available to host new solutions for agriculture. The IoT Agrotech centre is an infrastructure to support and promote innovation and entrepreneurship that aims to leverage the integration of IoT solutions in the economy, especially in rural-based activities.
🔸The Seminary Experimental Farm is one of the Fundão AgroTech Centre facilities, where several projects and experimentations are running. The farm, with 20 hectares, besides being a test filed available to start ups aiming to test and experiment its own IoT technologies, it is a place where the Município do Fundão runs several projects and experimentations, in cooperation with different entities, namely the valorisation of autochthonous breeds and three distinct test fields for cherries, olive and grapes. Furthermore, the facilities are also used to host several training programmes in the agro-forestry/agro-industrial sector, namely for Third Country Nationals.
Thank you Fundao for you incredible hospitality and for organising such insightful and intersting visits.