The creation of a cross-border information sharing platform for innovative companies is no longer a dream. Today, we are happy to announce that our project partners BuSyBee, Innovation2Market and Early Tech have launched the Hyperegio platform where companies find their significant other in the Euregion. The Hyperegio platform is meant to bring innovative businesses together and help them venture across the border to share their knowledge and help each other move forward.
The issue the Hyperegio project aims to address is based on the fact that a lot of SMEs and knowledge institutions have little awareness of what is going on across the border. Even in an interconnected region as the EMR, with its shared history and culture, borders are still seen as a barrier rather than as an asset. Therefore, a lot of knowledge is lost, or locked within a company. Rather than letting everyone reinvent the wheel on their own, Hyperegio strives to teach each other how to build and optimise the wheel together until it is perfect. We at Interreg share this vision, we believe that through close cooperation we can not only benefit from each other as a European region, but also establish ourselves as an even more attractive region for innovation and growth.
The Hyperegio projects helps connecting the dots by motivating companies to make the step across the border. Celabor, a R&D company specialised in food technologies and packaging have received the very first voucher from EarlyTech. This money enabled them to launch their cross-border project BARBARA which aims to recycle agro-food waste to biopolymers.
You can apply for such a voucher with your company and so boost your cross border adventure. Together we can, step by step, remove the barriers that exist in relation with the borders in the Euregion Meuse-Rhine. Applying for such a voucher is as described by Hyperegio director Ralph Meyer a walk in the park. All you have to do is apply with a feasible plan, taking action and receive your reimbursement.
Willem Kleinendorst (23 March 2018)
