BLUE CROWDFUNDING: 4th project meeting & webinar by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry
The 4th Blue Crowdfunding project meeting was held in January 2021. It was followed up by a Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry Webinar, with the expert contribution of Crowdpolicy.
The 4th BCF meeting was held online on January 19, under the coordination of E-zavod. It primarily focused on partner reports asserting the good progress achieved so far, and paid special attention to planning for the next months. Its topics included the selection of blue economy SMEs for crowdfunding support, as coordinated by the Goteo Foundation, valuable reporting on the support provided to 13 blue CF campaigns, as coordinated by the University of Algarve (UALG), and lessons learned as prepared by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI). Setting up the way forward, attention then shifted to co-creation workshops planned for legal considerations and for identifying the civic project of blue economy CF. Next, roadmaps for fund-matching and civic crowdfunding in the existing framework conditions were presented, followed by a listing of measures for setting up appropriate framework conditions.
Building on this progress, on January 26 the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized a specialized webinar on the preparation of a crowdfunding campaign. The webinar provided participants with key insights on campaign preparation by visiting topics such as legal issues and practical steps, not failing to also provide best practice examples. On behalf of Crowdpolicy, Chief Innovation Officer Konstantinos Kalogerakis offered expert support, supplying participants with a detailed presentation of issues to be considered and steps to be taken in preparation of crowdfunding campaigns.
The Blue Crowdfunding project aims to improve the skills of stakeholders in the blue growth economy sector in the Mediterranean region, by boosting innovation through participatory funding. In particular, it seeks to improve the competitiveness of blue economy SMEs through participatory funding, and also to develop the operational capacity of the Regions to use participatory funding.
Crowdpolicy provides support for regional workshops organized by fellow partners in its function as an expert partner of the Blue Crowdfunding project, alongside ECN, E-zavod from Slovenia and Goteo Foundation from Spain. Being the first Greek organization to be accepted as a member of the European Crowdfunding Network (ECN), Crowdpolicy has developed its own Crowdfunding platform, which is now a part of the company’s “CrowdApps’’ cloud suite of e-government and crowdsourcing apps. The platform enjoys several high-profile applications in Greece, among which at the Act4Greece crowdfunding campaign of the National Bank of Greece.
The Blue Crowdfunding project is supported by the INTERREG MED Programme of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
