How does the digital matchmaking work?
What is a matchmaking event?
A matchmaking event is essentially a meeting place for businesses. Here companies get the opportunity to meet with other companies for rather brief, rarely more than 20 minutes, 1-to-1 meetings to discuss potential projects and assess if their goals are compatible. It is often compared to speed-dating, but for companies.
In a short amount of time you get to explore whether the two of you have overlapping project interests and might benefit from talking further about potential cooperation. The great thing about a matchmaking is that each meeting is long enough to explore the important topics, but short enough that you have not invested a lot of your time if you realise that you are not compatible.
Why should I attend a matchmaking?
Innovating is a challenging endeavour – it takes time, resources and dedication. But innovation is also the way to solve the challenges of tomorrow, and to stay competitive. Facilitating partnerships for a more competitive and innovative Europe is the main goal for our matchmaking events. In these events, we seek to facilitate a meeting place where European companies with innovative ideas can meet and discuss how they can cooperate across borders to create successful projects.
Do you have an idea or a plan that will innovate a product, service or technology? And will it, as a result, boost your own competitiveness? Will it, in addition, help solve societal and environmental challenges? Then the EEA and Norway Grants matchmakings is an event you cannot miss – here you can meet potential partner companies from Bulgaria, Romania and Norway, all seeking to innovate and solving the challenges of today and tomorrow.
How is a digital matchmaking different?
A digital matchmaking, also called a virtual matchmaking, works the same way as a physical matchmaking. The purpose is for the attending companies to identify and meet potential cooperation partners. The only difference is that instead of having to travel to the location, you can do it from the comfort of your own home or office.
This indicates both challenges and opportunities. When an event is not physical, you don’t get to mingle and establish connections face to face. But there are instead new opportunities:
1) The barrier of entry is almost completely removed. We know that it can be hard to take a day out of your busy schedule to attend an event, no matter how interesting it might be. Hence, we plan our digital matchmakings to only require a couple of hours spread across a longer timeframe. That way you can easily incorporate the matchmaking into your normal work schedule.
2) It allows you to take a more active role in the event. When it's online it is easier for every attending company to participate more actively and have more chances to promote their project ideas. This means that it becomes easier for you to get the meetings you want – as you’ve been given chances both to communicate your ideas and assess those of other participants. It should be noted that this increased participation / possibilities for interaction require at the same time more preparation by the participant. Whenever you communicate / present digitally, you need to make sure that your message is clear and simple.
What would it take of me to participate in a digital matchmaking?
We want to make participation in a digital matchmaking as easy and smooth as possible – while ensuring that the experience is both valuable and interesting. The format of our digital matchmakings therefore differs from our physical matchmakings in key areas:
1) The event will be distributed across 2 days, with information sent out in advance. Each day will only contain an hour or two each, making the event more efficient and easier to incorporate into your daily schedule.
2) You, as the participant, will be in the centre of the event. The event will enable the participants to take a more proactive role and become the main contributors to the event. In our digital matchmakings, more companies will present themselves and there will be more chances to communicate your project ideas. This will require good preparation from you as a participant. If you invest some time in concisely and persuasively formulating your message, and practice how you communicate, potential partnerships will become much more likely.
3) You will receive communication from us from the very beginning, before the event starts, until after the event has ended. Because the event doesn’t just happen on one day, the communication you receive from the EEA and Norway Grants will be spread across more time. You will receive important information about our Calls for Proposals, project eligibility, and event details before the event – this is done to ensure that you are prepared and get the most out of the event. This will take the form of written communication, videos, and optional online workshops. Depending on the type of event, you might also receive important information after the event.
Are you convinced?
Digital matchmakings are, above all, flexible - they are designed to be as user-friendly as possible. Hence, you can trust that the event will be designed with the participant in mind.
