AEI Tèxtils hosts GALACTICA in Terrassa, Hackathon final and incoming Learning Expedition

Submitted by Josep Casamada on 03 December 2021

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This week, the project GALACTICA, led by AEI Tèxtils – the Advanced Textile Materials Cluster of Catalonia, has come to Terrassa for two activities: the 2nd hackathon final round and to host a Learning Expedition. GALACTICA aims at promoting innovation across the aerospace, textile and advanced manufacturing sectors.

On Monday and Tuesday, AEI Tèxtils welcomed 12 companies coming from across Europe from aeronautic/aerospace, advanced manufacturing and textile sector within the framework of GALACTICA Learning Expedition to Terrassa with the aim of exploring the Catalan textile innovation ecosystem. Participants visited several cluster members including LEITAT, UPC, LIASA, CINPASA, Marina Tèxtil, Texfire and Marina Race.

Within the Learning Expedition, AEI Tèxtils organized a cross-fertilization workshop among visitors and cluster members (E. CIMA, GROBELASTIC, MARINA TEXTIL, TEXFIRE and MACCIÓN) in order to promote synergies across Europe and across the different domains covered by GALACTICA such as advanced manufacturing and aerospace. All cluster members were really satisfied with the new connections enabled by GALACTICA and the cluster, as source for innovation and competitiveness increase.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, AEI Tèxtils, as coordinator of GALACTICA, also hosted the 2nd GALACTICA Hackathon final in Terrassa. This second event welcomed the 9 finalist teams and the 5 jury members, all coming from different European countries. All the teams had 24h to develop an innovative business model of their ideas combining textile, aerospace and advanced manufacturing presented in the first round virtually. The hackathon counted with 50.000€ in prizes and was open to startup teams and students. The final pitching session and the award ceremony was held at ESEEIAT, UPC as member of the cluster.

AEI Tèxtils is leading upcoming GALACTICA activities including the launch of the second call for proposals planned for mid-January and the organization of the 2nd matchmaking to bring together companies to establish synergies and prepare consortia to apply in the 2nd call. The second call will count with 1.64M€ in funding to support Orbital Projects and Pioneer Acceleration projects.

AEI Tèxtils is supporting its members as a collaborative engine for driving economic recovery, renewal and resilience based on innovation. The GALACTICA project is a key strategic to build and connect SMEs from the cluster with other European companies. AEI Tèxtils supports business growth opportunities focusing on connecting innovation opportunities.

 

About GALACTICA

The GALACTICA project aims to support the creation of new industrial value chains around the textile, aeronautical and aerospace sectors based on advanced manufacturing.

 GALACTICA has a total budget of 5 million euros, 4 of which are used directly to help SMEs to innovate through various mechanisms, including financial support of 3 million euros through two open calls for innovation projects, hackathons, and travel exchange.

 The first call for project proposals was launched in March 2021 and the second will be launched in January 2022.

 The project will foster the creation of unidentified or unexplored market opportunities for existing organizations and start-ups in developing latent and emerging value chains. It will overcome information and market deficiencies by bringing together companies from various industrial sectors, research and development centers and clusters, through a set of tools, instruments and initiatives that will create the basis for the establishment of new value chains in the textile and aerospace industries.

 During 2021, GALACTICA has supported more than 70 companies with over 1.25M€ with different mechanisms including collaborative projects under Orbital Projects, individual innovation projects under Pioneer Acceleration, Travel vouchers to attend learning expeditions and through hackathon prizes.  During next months, the project will distribute more than 1.7M€ to continue supporting SMEs cross-sectoral innovation and collaboration.

 The GALACTICA consortium integrates eight European clusters and two innovation agents: AEI Tèxtils in Catalonia as project coordinator, ATEVAL in Valencia y CTA in Andalusia (Spain), NTT in Italy, CORALLIA in Greece, Suderelbe in Germany, PRODUCTECH in Portugal, EMC2 in France, EBAN in Belgium y Science Park Graz in Austria.

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