Innovative Marble Business Idea Competition (IMBIC)

[Eligio Cordobés Padilla]

From the Erasmus+ MarbleTech project we are happy to inform you that an Innovative Marble Business Idea Competition (IMBIC) will be carried out over the next few months here in the MarbleTech Virtual Challenge Community (VCC).

We are looking for projects that will benefit from this level of support, and are at the 'idea' stage of development, although this doesn't necessarily disqualify businesses that have already formed. To this end, we would like to support the winning idea of the competition with a small financial endowment.

A crowd-funding campaign will be carried out to collect this financial endowment. In order to accept the funds, you just will need to agree that you will spend the money working on your business idea, and that you will continue working with the MarbleTech partners to further develop the idea.

The IMBIC will involve relevant teams made up by students, researchers and companies. The winning team will receive funds collected during a crowd-funding campaign that MarbleTech partners will promote for final development of the selected idea.

How to apply?

Interested stakeholders not yet members of the VCC, could ask to subscribe for taking part in the competition. Participants will be called to share ideas and brainstorm for creating innovative products, services or business models in marble and connected sectors. Each member of the VCC will be able to post online its idea and other participants could manifest their interest providing feedback, stimulating the development of new potential ideas or improvements of the proposed ones.

In parallel, the MarbleTech partners will develop a guide (soon available) detailing the requirements for the participation and the evaluation criteria of the ideas.

Participants will be called to present their ideas together with a small business plan and PPT presentation during October 2023. In November 2023 the partners will present the proposal ideas in a multiplier event in Istanbul, where the first votation will be carried out, other stakeholders will be invited to vote online through the newsletters and social media, selecting the 3 more voted ideas. During February 2024 these 3 best ideas will be presented in another multiplier event in Pisa (participants will be invited) and then a final votation will be opened (voting duration to be determined), the winner will be announced and a crowdfunding campaign will be launched for the implementation of this best idea.

First steps

The reception of ideas for the IMBIC will be open from the moment this message is published in the VCC.

To publish your idea and participate in IMBIC you only have to create a New Conversation in the VCC with the subject: [IMBIC Proposal] Name_of_your_proposal. In the body of the message should detail the proposal as clearly as possible.

Look for support, share your idea and the VCC between your contacts!

Who can apply?

Any stakeholder part of the VCC, individually or collectively: students, researchers, companies and so on.

Deadline

First idea: 6th October 2023.

Small business idea and PPT of the first idea: 6th November 2023.

All dates and locations are subject to change depending on the timeframe of the project.