Master Class "Business Angels – Knowledge Entrepreneurship and Crowdfunding Business Start-ups"
The International VFU Academy "Knowledge and Innovation" under BG051RO001-7.0.07 project "Without Borders" - "Innovative Model for Knowledge Transfer and Innovation between Varna Free University "Cherorizats Hrabar" and Coventry University" organized a master class "Business Angels – Knowledge Entrepreneurship and Crowdfunding Business Start-ups"on 7 and 8 February with the participation of Eli Miron, PhD and Gilad Ravid, PhD from Ben Gurion University in Tel Aviv. A lot of world famous companies have started with funding from a Business Angel. Such examples are Skype, Google, Facebook and others. Therefore the master class attracted great interest as the registered participants from Plovdiv and Sofia were 167 people. For this reason Varna Free University broadcast in real time all lectures and presentations delivered in the class for students outside VFU. For the first time, the experts from the Institute of Technology at the University implemented such a broadcast with professional video equipment and excellent quality, which enabled the presence of all participants to be optimal. The successful implementation of the communication created conditions for offering a new type of electronic service from VFU - high-quality videoconferencing. The technology allows virtual presence of each participant during the presentation, with the opportunity questions to be asked and a direct live connection with the lecturers and the hall to be established.
The highlights of the presentations were related to the performance of the existing networks of Business Angels in the world, Europe and Bulgaria, as well as platforms for group financing (crowdfunding). The practical orientation of the master class generated concrete proposals for collaboration between the university and Ben Gurion University in the field of the design of information systems and networking technologies. VFU students will work on joint projects with students from Ben Gurionas the schedule and programs for the upcoming semesterare imminent to be specified. Each project group will work in sync through crowdfunding platform.
In addition to the joint participation in Erasmus +, the experts from Israel offered cooperation to VFU when preparing a project in the field of smart cities (Smart Cities), a priority of the European program Horizon 2020 in the project session (April-May). Expect the film for the successfully conducted master class, which will be broadcast in the channel of VFU "Chernorizets Hrabar" on YouTube.
