These initiatives choose to be part of the incubator ofhigh technology of the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz during the third call for projects
They are innovative and technologically based projects from sectors related to the Blue Economy applied to areas such as aquaculture, port security systems, education for sustainability, communication and artistic production and water management
LThe initiatives that are selected will begin incubation starting in February and will have the full support of Telefónica's team of mentors, who will develop a personalized work plan for their promotion, growth and consolidation.
Incubazul has 80% co-financing from the European FEDER Funds within the 2014-2020 Operational Program, A way of making Europe, through the INCYDE Foundation
The incubator opens a new period for recruiting projects for the call for May 2023
Cadiz, January 20, 2023
Thirty-eight new projects have registered to join the Blue Economy technology incubator, Incubazul, through its third call and thus enter the comprehensive acceleration program, opened by the Cádiz Free Trade Zone, with the support of Telefónica and its Open Future platform.
All of them intend to join the ecosystem of the technological incubator of the Zona Base project and in which 23 projects that accessed the accelerator in the two previous calls are already working. In the incubator of the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz they are accompanied to consolidate business initiatives linked to the sea and its natural resources.
These innovative ideas choose to join Incubazul, coming mostly from the province of Cádiz, but also from different places in Andalusia and the rest of Spain, and present concepts and services with a technological base for application in the multiple subsectors covered by the Blue Economy: aquaculture, fishing, recreational navigation and ports, coastal protection, biotechnology or desalination, among many others.
The new entry window involves a preselection of projects in accordance with the bases of the call, which covers everything that makes the oceans and their sustainability a habitat in which to implement projects that result in economic and social development.
Of all the applications submitted, a preselection is carried out according to the rules of the call and those that pass the first screening have to defend their project before an Evaluation Committee, made up of experts in entrepreneurship and the Blue Economy. Those who are selected in this process will be proposed to be part of the initiative.
Once the projects have been evaluated and approved by the aforementioned committee, the selected projects will begin incubation in mid-February, which will last for 4 months in which, with the added value of the tutoring and mentoring of the Telefónica team, they will lay the foundations and work on the construction of the business idea.
Incubazul has 80% co-financing from the European FEDER Funds within the 2014-2020 Operational Program, A way of making Europe, through the INCYDE Foundation
The State delegate in the Cádiz Free Trade Zone, Fran González, has assured that "the Cádiz incubator already acts as an important focus of attraction for innovative business ideas. In this way, Incubazul is turning Cádiz into a national, and even European, reference for the Blue Economy, which gives prominence to the oceans and seas as an economic source and for managing their resources in an efficient and sustainable way."
After these first three incubation periods (BATCH), other windows will open for the arrival of projects to the incubator. Initiatives interested in being incubated in Incubazul can access the information on Telefónica's Open Future enabled platform through the websitewww.openfuture.org and on the Incubazul website itself, whose address iswww.incubazul.es.
Twenty-three projects underway
The new business initiatives will be added to the 23 that are already underway and that were already housed in the Incubator. All of them represent technology-based concepts and services that can be applied in the multiple subsectors covered by the Blue Economy: from the creation of tuna leather through a vegetable tanning process; the certification of marine biology courses within the framework of recreational diving; the development of smart catamarans for autonomous navigation and ocean data collection; a platform to give greater prominence to women who work in the blue economy; going through the manufacture of ecological and sustainable surfboards from plastics collected from the coast, or the eco-design of sustainable packaging through the valuation of waste such as macroalgae collected from the shores of beaches.
In the Incubazul ecosystem, incubated companies can access services such as incubation spaces, with physical accommodation at the Incubazul headquarters, or remotely, in individual or shared offices (coworking), the laboratory, and meeting and training rooms. Also a complete training and mentoring program, run by Telefónica and support for internationalization. And on the other hand, a networking program, advice on access to financing and support to facilitate research.
The Cádiz Free Trade Zone implements with Incubazul a project that aims to be a benchmark in the Blue Economy throughout Spain and in which circumstances are created to attract and promote talent and ideas with the oceans and seas as the main focus.
