Braga, through its Startup Braga, is one of the 11 hosts of the first summit dedicated to cities that have been investing in encouraging the development of entrepreneurial solutions. The summit, initially scheduled for Malaga, will take place in an online environment on November 25.

Promoted by the European consortium Global StartupCities, which has the support of the European Commission, the event will propose a reflection on the new challenges for the creation and consolidation of startups and other companies, based on themes such as talent and requalification needs, new market trends, female and youth entrepreneurship, or the emerging challenges of innovation in the areas of health and climate. The summit also intends to affirm itself as a showcase for companies to position their products in new markets.

For Ricardo Rio, Mayor of Braga and InvestBraga, this initiative will serve to "promote a joint reflection on the direction of the industry of startups at a global level, also allowing the approach of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Braga to others of reference, but also to discuss the major challenges of innovation, across all companies, that the coming year's reserve".

It is in this plan, moreover, that Carlos Silva, Executive Director of InvestBraga, calls for participation in the event, which he considers to be "a privileged opportunity for any company with global ambitions to contact investors and potential customers or partners".

Also, Luís Rodrigues, director of Startup Braga, highlights the importance of this international summit by stressing that "it creates a window of opportunity for the ecosystem of Startup Braga since it will give the opportunity to show that Braga is available to host highly qualified entrepreneurs who have projects in the areas of nanotechnology, technologies for health and digital economy".

Ricardo Rio, who will also be one of the speakers at the summit, also highlights the active role of the city in the network created in 2019. "Braga will lead the strategy and action plan of this consortium in the area of Talent and is, along with cities like Valencia, Malaga, Manchester or Cluj-Napoca, one of the founders of the consortium, which reinforces the importance of our city as a hub of reference in the European framework of highly technological and specialized entrepreneurship," he says.

The event, which will be divided between virtual rooms dedicated to each of the co-host cities and the main room, will allow the debate around the consortium's strategy and the development of an increasingly global market.

It should be remembered that, besides Braga, the Global StartupCities network also includes cities such as Manchester (United Kingdom), Seville (Spain), Varna (Bulgaria), Vantaa (Finland), Valencia (Spain), Ostrava (Czech Republic), Malaga (Spain), Leuven (Belgium), Heraklion (Greece), Cologne (Germany), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Bilbao (Spain), Galway (Ireland), Lyon (France), Turin (Italy), Breslávia (Poland) and Chernigov (Ukraine).

Registrations here