Seventeen Catalan clusters travel to Boston in search of partnerships and strategic opportunities

As part of the Strategic Cluster Week, an initiative organised by ACCIÓ through the Catalonia Clusters programme in collaboration with the Trade and Investment Office in New York, this May 17 Catalan clusters, among them Leather Cluster Barcelona, travelled to Boston with the aim of exploring strategic opportunities within their sectors, fostering international networking and learning how clusters work in advanced and innovative ecosystems.

In addition to the leather cluster, the clusters taking part in this initiative are some of the members of the Catalonia Clusters programme: CataloniaBIO & HealthTech, CENFIM, the Clúster Digital de Catalunya, CEEC, the Clúster Foodservice de Catalunya, the Clúster de Salut Mental de Catalunya, the Catalan Water Partnership, FEMAC, INDESCAT, CICAT, the KID’S Cluster, INNOVI, the Packaging Cluster, In-move, the Clúster Audiovisual de Catalunya and MODACC.

As part of the mission, the clusters learned at first hand about the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, the technology area of Boston City Council and the city’s largest business accelerator, MassChallenge. In addition, the clusters held more than 50 one-to-one meetings with leading technology companies and organisations in the region.

As regards Leather Cluster Barcelona’s individual agenda, its executive director Jordi Vidal met Brendan Smith, CEO and founder of SiTration, a start-up specialising in the textile and leather sector that has developed a patented membrane technology capable of purifying wastewater.

A working meeting was also held in the field of vision and artificial intelligence with a view to incorporating technological advances in order to generate impact in the business world through the improvement of inspection processes.

And finally, the last individual meeting was with Fiorenzo Omenetto, founder of Silklab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory that investigates materials at the interface between technology and the life sciences. The laboratory’s aim is to provide innovation and solutions of global social impact through advances in naturally sourced, abundant and sustainable materials. Its basic research is based on advanced processing, prototyping and manufacturing using structural proteins.

During the trip to Boston, participants also received specialised training from international professionals such as Harvard Business School professor Christian Ketels, MIT professor and technology transfer promoter Deshpande Leon Sandler, and the Catalan doctor in artificial intelligence and innovation benchmark at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Luis Perez-Breva.

The representatives of the Catalan clusters also received training and attended talks by entrepreneurs from other sectors. Eric Paley, one of the partners of Founder Collective, explained how venture capital works in this North American region. In addition, the CEO of InnoLead and The Boston Globe columnist, Scott Kirsner, gave an account of Boston’s innovative DNA.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting and transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.