Our Week in Brussels: Knowledge Alliances Cluster Meeting & The University – Business Forum

Last week, Elias Iosif from UNIC and Kardelen Kala from EBAN, representing the DLT4All consortium, attended the Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliances Cluster Meeting followed by the University Business Forum at the premises of the Square in Belgium on 23rd, 24th and 25th October 2019.

The Cluster meeting aimed to let past and current projects of the Knowledge Alliances to come together, exchange ideas and best practices and try to develop solutions. DLT4All took part in the “Innovation, creativity and technology” group discussions, during which Elias Iosif took on the role of the group moderator and helped direct the discussions.

The next two days were devoted to the 8th University-Business Forum, an event aiming to bring together policymakers, representatives from higher education, business and other stakeholders to discuss and debate the role of university-business cooperation for innovation and sustainable development.

DLT4All’s Elias Iosif represented the project coordinator, the University of Nicosia, while Kardelen Kala of EBAN was there to represent the business side of the Knowledge Alliances project. During the event, we had the chance to listen to such high level speakers as Commissioner Tibor Navracsics, Borhene Chakroun of the Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems division of UNESCO and Themis Christophidou, director general of DG EAC of the European Commission. At lunchtime during the first day, Elias Iosif had the change to go on stage for a ten minute “pitch” of the DLT4All project in front of the event participants. This was followed by a Q&A session.

The event also included an exhibition area for participating projects. DLT4All had a stand here, where we  had the opportunity to talk about our project, exchange ideas with partners on other projects and find synergies.

The cluster meeting and the UB forum served as a perfect way to close Year 1 of DLT4All, and gave us an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and what we have left to do. As we move on to the next year and the content development phase of our project, stay tuned for more!