Startup Portimão celebrated its 6th anniversary this Thursday and “received” a new pole as a gift, a space for coworking very focused on digital nomads, which will be born «very quickly» on the top floor of the old fish market in Portimão.
The announcement was made at the birthday party of the business incubator, which took place on the 10th of August at the headquarters of Startup Portimão, at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve (AIA), in the interior of this municipality.
With the creation of the new hub, located above the Portimão Tourist Office and which «will have a magnificent view over the Arade River», the Portimão Chamber, promoter of the incubator, wants to «create conditions so that more people can be entrepreneurs and come to Portimão, create their own business».
«What we have to do is open a door for them to start creating. After that, they will fly alone", he told the Sul Informação Isilda Gomes, mayor of Portimão, on the sidelines of the session.
The idea is to inaugurate the new space “very quickly. We're just here choosing a date, we're already buying the furniture to put it there».
According to the mayor, the space is also intended for digital nomads who are already or want to settle in Portimão, because they are “people we have to catch”.
«In this new hub, we can receive not only digital nomads, but also coworkers and companies that have fewer people and want a different type of centrality», said Luis Matos Martins, executive director of Startup Portimão.
According to the same official, after six years of activity, the Portimonense business incubator has «about 30 companies, 27 startups here at the Autódromo, 35 jobs. We have more than 300 hours of training and 1300 visits to the facilities, which are surprising numbers».
To these figures, add «36 alumni, 241 initiatives, more than 45 mentors and more than 60 partner entities».
“We will continue to move forward with the roadshow by companies, build a more solid bridge between entrepreneurs in startups that are emerging and the big companies, so that there is knowledge transfer, something I call open innovation and that makes a lot of sense», he added, in statements to Sul Informação.
The long-term objective «is to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem [in Portimão] and this is not only done with startups not just with companies. It is also done with schools, teachers and children».
«With that in mind, we are going to continue with the programs for schools in the first cycle, providing children with entrepreneurial skills, so that they can focus on solutions and not on problems and build, in essence, differentiating value propositions. This is what awaits us, I am very optimistic and I am sure that the best is yet to come », she said.
Luís Matos Martins also disclosed that Portimão will be the host city of IncubX – National Meeting of Incubators, scheduled for September 28th of this year.
The anniversary of Startup Portimão was also attended by Pedro Cilínio, Secretary of State for the Economy, who highlighted the networking work carried out by national incubators, of which Startup Portimão is a partner, considering «that this collaboration and sharing are the success factors”.
Another guest to speak during the session was the host and partner of Startup Portimão Paulo Pinheiro, CEO of Parkalgar/AIA, who highlighted the implementation of the Celerator project at the racetrack, which will be a pioneer at European level in the production of synthetic fuels.
Paulo Pinheiro, defended that «we have to be at the forefront and think of new ways of looking at the industry, which is why we intend to create the first technological park directed towards these new technologies, which will undoubtedly have an impact on Portimão, on the Algarve and for Portugal».
André Gomes, president of Turismo do Algarve, highlighted «the excellent work that Startup Portimão has been developing, also with the support of RTA», an action that «focuses on areas totally aligned with our strategy, as investment is needed public and private. It is with the involvement of the entire community that intelligent and digital destinations are built».
José Apolinário, president of the Commission for Coordination and Regional Development of the Algarve, recalled that “beginning this journey involved choices, in a low-density territory, seeking to create a culture of entrepreneurship and giving it a new technical and technological utility. (…) We are a tourism region, but we need diversification and we have to diversify the economic base of the Algarve », he defended.
The anniversary of Startup Portimão also featured the testimony of Sara Bonixe, one of the incubator's entrepreneurs, who revealed her story and stressed how important it is not to let «our fears prevent us from realizing our dreams», namely business dreams.
Photos: Hugo Rodrigues | Sul Informação
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