The third edition of the Unique Summit was held in Braga, Portugal, from November 28 to 30, 2022. Promoted by the Global StartupCities initiative, it is responsible for accelerating and interconnecting new entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems, with a special focus on cities outside of nations’ major economic hubs.
The Unique Summit is co-organised by the following StartupCities: Braga, Cape Town, Cluj-Napoca, Cologne, Heraklion, Malaga, Ostrava, Valencia, Vantaa, and Varna, and aims to join delegations from 50 innovation ecosystems.
The Unique Summit is a global initiative that aims to facilitate contact between leading figures of international innovation ecosystems; foster new economic opportunities, strategic collaborations and job creation through the matchmaking between start-ups, investors, corporates and StartupCities; consolidate a bottom-up strategy capable of influencing public policies around innovation and entrepreneurship; and develop a programme centred on start-ups, providing them the opportunity to showcase their products and pitch to investors.
TTRO sent its regional manager for UK and Europe Carl Robinson to represent the company at the summit.
“It was an amazing three days,” said Carl. “The opening ceremony, attended by the mayor of Braga and the president of Portugal, was held at UNESCO heritage site Bom Jesus do Mont. It was a truly spectacular start to the summit. Having the president deliver the opening address shows that this is a prestigious event of global proportions.
“The event was also aligned to TTRO’s values – specifically around lifelong learning and global reach. The Unique Summit aims to empower people within its stakeholder cities. In the case of Portugal, for example, it’s often the case that people will graduate from learning institutions in Braga and then move to Lisbon for further opportunities, but the summit’s goal is to show them that they can continue to learn and develop in Braga, and that they can be part of a global network.”
Carl was on a panel of experts that was comprised of Dr Cecilia Waismann vice president of MindCET; Gerri Burton, CEO of New Learning Ventures LLC and GPM of TalentCities; Bou Diarra, CEO of IBRIZ SAS; and Andrea Hoffmanová, deputy mayor of Ostrava in the Czech Republic.
Carl presented to an audience of mayors, academics, and entrepreneurs around the Digital Boost programme.
The Digital Boost programme was launched in January of 2021 in collaboration with the City of Wellington, New Zealand, and Google Public Cloud to help small business owners realise the benefits of digitising their business. The programme was developed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in partnership with the private sector and helps support and enable the government’s vision for New Zealand to have the most digitally engaged small business sector in the world.
Just as the Unique Summit aims to build connections between start-ups, the Digital Boost ecosystem has connected over 9200 small businesses across New Zealand, which has enhanced their buying power through partnership and collaboration and provided business intelligence insights.
“A lot of people in the audience were hearing about something like this for the first time,” said Carl. “Now the city of Braga is keen to roll out a similar solution and that’s something we can potentially discuss with them in the future.”
TTRO would like to say a special thank you to Gerri Burton from TalentCities for inviting us to participate at the Unique Summit.