beFORE in OPEN IRUN LAB: Future thinking to promote entrepreneurship and support business innovation strategies
Spanish first beFORE National Event took place 1st February in the premises that Mondragon University has in Irun, under the title “Future thinking to support your business innovation strategy”. This event was organized together by Mondragon University Empresagintza (MUE) and Prospektiker, the two Spanish partners of the beFORE Consortium, as part of the “Open Irun Lab” entrepreneurial initiative lead by MUE.
The aim of this event was to raise awareness about the relevancy and role of foresight and future thinking to promote innovative entrepreneurship and business innovation strategies among entrepreneurs and business professionals, along with discussing about main competences needs to deal with future oriented tasks. This discussion was based on the results obtained through the online survey filled by academics, students and entrepreneurs and business people from Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain from November to December 2017, as part of the 2nd work-package of the Erasums+ beFORE Project.
After the introductory welcome made by Idoia Urcelay from MUE, Ibon Zugasti and Oihana Hernáez from Prospektiker talked about the importance of long term and future thinking to support the development of innovative products, services and business models, focusing on the identification of competences that help to navigate the future; beFORE project’s results were presented, giving an overview of the main results regarding competences needs in this context.
The event counted as well with practical and real business cases, through the participation of different entrepreneurs, highlighting TZBZ, a cooperative company focused in creating a positive impact in the world through innovation, and through the use of the foresight. In addition, a dialogue session was held to discuss the application of foresight in real entrepreneur business projects, with the participation of companies of Roots, Koenna, Hiku and Drops from the bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurial leadership and innovation.