The Confederation of Egyptian European Business Association, based in Alexandria, Egypt, and an EMPHASIS project partner, selected four Egyptian SMEs based on their capacity to engage with the Open Innovation (OI) ecosystem, in order to provide them with advisory services - in the form of vouchers - to enhance their innovation capacity to build partnerships, covering the various stages of their innovation journeys.

The selected beneficiaries were selected from various fields, such as Transport & Logistics, ICT Information & Communication Technologies, Culture – Tourism – Cultural & Creative Industries as well as Environment & Sustainable Development. Get to know the 4 Egyptian Beneficiaries and their innovative ideas here: 

General Labs

General Labs is a tech lab that aims to bypass existing technologies, tap into available resources to create simple sustainable designs that solve complex challenges, provoke industries’ stagnation, and challenge the status quo.  The General Labs team has developed a solution under the name HE-Rentals, which aims to bring heavy machinery and equipment rental from the phonebook to the digital age by creating an online marketplace that connects lessors with renters it in a single step.

Semsemia

Semsemia is an innovative Tourism company formed by a group of storytellers that take travelers on immersive, cultural and historical tours around Egypt. Through the EMPHASIS project, Semsemia aims to digitize destinations and promote slow tourism by making accessible technological solutions that would help locals produce content, offer services, and promote their areas, while also improving visitors' experiences at sites through the use of technology such as AR and VR. They will develop a mobile app integrating all important functions such as information, maps, and booking with features such as VR and AR.

Blue Line

Blue Line is an Alexandria-based travel agency with an idea to create an online platform to facilitate operations for small-scale tourism businesses, allowing these businesses to remain and compete in the labor market. BlueLine aims to develop a virtual marketplace that will enable transportation pooling among businesses to reduce operating costs, facilitate the booking of one-day trips, activities, and packages for businesses and customers through an online booking service and enable tourism and travel companies to offer, promote and display their products.

Digital Vision

Digital Vision a company specializing in software technology, Distribution Characterization, Data Analysis, Databases Development, Business Development and Supply Chain Operations. The Digital Vision team aims to develop a mobile application solving the issue of sustainable waste management targeting and benefiting households around the country. The Application will offer various benefits to users including point collection to be used through multiple outlets creating an effective and complete cycle of benefits towards preserving the environment and contributing to a sustainable economy. 

Through the Open Call of the EMPHASIS project, the partnership has selected a total of 24 SMEs from 6 Mediterranean countries, who will benefit from innovation support services that will increase their capacities to innovate. And their readiness to engage with partners from the other countries by building cross-border partnerships. This network will help them to expand into new markets and facilitate the exchange of knowledge between the different actors, so that this cooperation translates into the co-creation and commercialization of sustainable products and services and innovations of Euro-Mediterranean SMEs.