Approximately 32 people joined us on April 24th for BTN’s Yearly Meeting and Member Meeting at SIVA Innovasjonsenter. It began with a fresh salmon lunch and was followed by the yearly meeting in which the year’s events were covered by Chairman of the Board Børger Sørvoll and Project Manager Ernst Kloosterman. Ernst then introduced Jessica Green, the new Head of Communications, and she shared a little bit about herself.
The first part of the member meeting was kicked off by Ken Enoksen from KPMG regarding how the Arctic Horizon program can assist local companies in achieving their Horizon 2020 goals, followed by Bernd Ketelsen Striberny from ArcticZymes talking about his own experience with Horizon 2020 funding. After a short coffee break, PWC’s Bengt Marius Hilstad gave us the highlights from PWC’s report on marine rest raw stuff in Norway.
Then the second part of the meeting began, with a focus on the Norwegian Innovation Clusters’ program, specifically the level of Norwegian Centers of Expertise. Elizabeth Bakkelund from The Norwegian Research Council shared the importance of the NCE program and explained what NCE status really means.
Finally, the meeting was closed with a presentation from Ernst on BTN’s current plans regarding the NCE program. In this section we played a game to help everyone get in the mood to chat called ‘1 Truth and 2 Lies,’ and the 9 winners took home the coveted prize of a chocolate treat. There was some interesting discussion regarding the direction that the members felt Biotech North should take in regard to the NCE program, and we took some polls in order to clarify everyone’s desires. The meeting was, in short, a big success. Thanks to everyone who joined!
