Despite preconceived notions of Greek mentality for entrepreneurship and technological advancement, there is a promising potential of legislative and financial developments in the last years that have made possible both the emergence of a startup plethora, as well as the growth of competitive companies that has led to a number of success stories such as market establishment, VC investments or corporate buyouts.
However such news rarely reach a wider audience in the public or national policymakers. One of HETiA’s mandates is technology and entrepreneurship evangelism, showcasing the benefits in society and economy. In the context of our current rebranding and expanding our pool of members, we will establish and maintain a constant presence in the media – traditional or otherwise.
Furthermore, as suitable national policies are often prerequisite for ecosystems nourishment, we recently participated in the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT) public consultation for Smart Specialisation Strategy – RIS3. HETiA contributed with expert suggestions/additions on the following thematic areas or sectors expected to contribute in the country’s growth perspective: Agro-food, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Environment and Sustainable Development, Energy, Health and Pharmaceuticals, Materials and Construction.
A common pain for early stage business ventures is how to obtain the needed resources and successfully exploit them in order to reach product/market fit to start generating revenue. As far as human resources, HETiA maintains close relationships with academia by having a significant number of research institutions and laboratories as associated members. We organize career days for networking recent graduates with our industrial members that lead to internships and often convert to long-term employment. Moreover, we regularly post job offerings from our members in order to reach a wider audience of experienced professionals.
HETiA also organizes workshops on General Management and Business Development for technology-intensive environments, Project Management, Risk Management, Negotiations, Intellectual Property Rights as well as specialized training on “hot” domains like cybersecurity, blockchain, etc.
Finally, for financial resources, HETiA acts as a cluster facilitator for public subsidy schemes, informs the members about private funding opportunities and hosts “pitching to investors” events. In the past with our former identity (Hellenic Semi-Conductor Industry Association – HSIA) and along with Corallia’s mi-cluster, we have received a two-phase public funding that has led many of our members to reach considerable growth.
We believe that involvement of all stakeholders in an ecosystem is the only way to achieve sustainable growth that expands beyond the borders of a single technology domain or market sector. For that reason, HETiA maintains alliances with other national or international trade associations, clusters and public bodies that lead to collaborative activities.
With our members’ growth on mind, each year we implement joint participation in flagship tradeshows (CES, CEBIT, IoT World Congress, etc.) where participants receive special discounts and enhanced visibility. We also host networking events for our members to explore collaboration possibilities and obtain valuable lessons learned from companies that successfully faced scaling their business challenge.