S2X Blog

An opportunity to explore the corporation-startup collaboration

On Friday June 14th, we organized our First “Industrial Challenges Workshop”, where corporations and startups worked together to identify the biggest challenges in the industry when it comes to innovation.

✍🏼 More than 50 challenges emerged about  AI + Sustainability + Digitalization + Tech Adaptation. To get a clear picture of the challenges and the actors who participated in check our executive summary. Continue reading to discover how the workshop was held.

The importance on embracing innovation

In the current context, where consumer trends and geopolitical🌍 conflicts are increasingly fast-paced💫, embracing innovation and constantly evolving becomes an imperative for corporations.

In fact, innovation has become no longer a luxury but a necessity for corporations aiming to thrive in the modern market, crucial for maintaining competitiveness and driving growth.

But when corporations try to innovate by themselves, they often face several challenges that hinder the asset.

• What are the main problems that companies encounter when innovating their projects?
• How can startups help corporations in this task?

With these questions in mind and the potential to answer them we decided to partner with NOBA Ventures and organized a unique workshod: “Industrial Challenges Workshop”. Corporations such as HP, LAINCO, Cetaqua – Water Technology Centre (AGBAR Group), Santander or associations representing large industrial groups, such as AMEC Positive Industry, Girona Next and Barcelona Activa didn’t miss the date.

Industrial Challenges Workshop methodology overview

The workshop was conducted by a 4-step guide to produce ideas that tackled key challenges. 

1. Challenge definition: We individually wrote and presented current challenges for the industrial sector. More than 50 challenge emerged.
2. Challenge clusterization: We clustered them into themes and prioritized 4 that moved forward to the ideation session. 
3. Ideation: We created teams and used a brainwriting exercise to build from each others ideas
4. Team Idea Sharing: After some discussion within each team, we refined challenges and ideas and shared them with other teams.

The outcome? Industry challenges and solutions that can serve as inspiration for both corporations and entrepreneurs. 

The 6 startups who participated in the Industrial Challenges Workshop are the ones who joined the second edition of our industrial tech support program. They play an important role in the Clean-Tech 🍃 sector, like the Nordic Clean Sea Solutions and the British Myneral Labs. Mobility 🚛, as the Swiss 4QT does. Ercura Industrial Exoskeletons from Finland and SYGLASS from Poland work into the Industry 4.0 ⚙️. And lastly, Mantiscope, the Turkish startup, play into the 

All of them played a key role and provided examples of practical solutions for corporations, demonstrating the important role of startups in innovation.