“IDEAS FOR TOMORROW’S WORLD”

A solution by Sustainica submitted to Boosting rural areas and building thriving rural communities

We help people with bright business ideas and early-stage startups to learn, set up and grow their businesses. In addition we empower location partners to become agents of economic development, innovation and social inclusion.

(Pitched: 21/12/2017)

One Page Summary

Background
From the sluggish economic growth and financial instability of the last several years to the perennial issues of political upheaval, resource crises, hunger, poverty, and disease, people have come to realize that the old ways of doing things no longer work.


What we need instead are creative and innovative solutions for fostering sustainable growth, securing jobs, and increasing competitive abilities. Social innovation is helping to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems with new solutions such as fair trade, distance learning, mobile money transfer, restorative justice, and zero-carbon housing.


The challenge
However, multiple data sources indicate that European conditions are far from ideal for (aspiring) entrepreneurs and fast-growing companies, and fragmentation hinders access to markets, sources of capital and supportive initiatives.


The idea
In order to foster social Innovation and economic growth by means of entrepreneurship we came to the idea to develop a virtual incubation service with a professional development program, that works closely together with dedicated location parners. We help people with bright ideas and early-stage startups to learn, set up and grow their businesses.


How?
The Sustainica-ecosystem provides an online incubation service (virtual realm) and utilises existing infrastructures (physical realm) of coworking spaces, cultural institutions as well as universities.

  1. Entrepreneurs have access to incubation services and work directly in the cloud, have Q&A sessions with experts, have online meetings as well as collaborate and exchange with their peers.
  2. Entrepreneurs join the Stanford University's professional development program "How to Start a Startup".
  3. Apart from the virtual realm the ecosystem also provides workspaces at various locations. This means that we work closely with our location partners from where startup-teams are able to work and receive personal mentoring on site.

Profile
As an experimental initiative, Sustainica operates at the intersection of design, science, technology and culture. We foster all kinds of change, for example in the field of low- and high tech, digital- and analog, design and engineering, scientific- and cultural innovation.


MVP
The pilot program shall start in June 2018 with a minimum of project- and locations partners, mentors and experts (early adaptors). Our goal is to deliver a successful proof of concept that allows us to raise additional investment and roll out the concept.