BITNET Network (Business, Innovation and Technology Network-BITNET) as a single network of excellence, will build on the results of the BITIN and BITNET Network, offering integrated services in support to business and innovation. The BITNET partners agreed again to work together within the Enterprise Europe Network, covering whole territory of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter FB&H). BITNET consortium will provide a variety of the Network services and continued support to their clients in internationalisation, innovation and Single Market. BITNET consortium will implement fundamental principles of the Network (client-centric approach, network effect and quality management) and combine a continued “no-wrong door” concept with the Network principles. The network of competent and proficient partners will implement the project. Consortium partners are: The Foreign Trade Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FTC), located in Sarajevo-coordinator, Sarajevo Economic Region Development Agency (SERDA) located in Sarajevo-partner, University of Sarajevo (UNSA) located in Sarajevo-partner, INTERA Technology Park (INTERA) located in Mostar-partner, Zenica Economic Development Agency (ZEDA) located in Zenica-partner, BIT Centre (BIT) located in Tuzla-partner and Development Agency of the Una-Sana Canton (DAUSC) located in Bihać-partner. All the partners are strategically chosen because of their experience and position in FB&H, namely the cities are the main centers of economic activities in FB&H and most of SMEs are concentrated around these cities. The Consortium partners will be delivering Kay Account management (KAM) services and services to enhance the innovation management capacity of SMEs, within project, will be UNSA, INTERA and BIT. All these activities will support SMEs on their way of becoming more competitive internationally.

Modern agriculture is largely based on new technological solutions closely related to the increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and various software solutions, not only for monitoring, but also for managing production processes. In Bosnia and Montenegro agriculture remains largely dependent on manual farming, with technical and technological solutions being poorly explored. At the same time, both countries have strong ICT sectors employing sizeable number of highly educated professionals who develop front-end software solutions. Building a sustainable regional future for the large extent hence depends on the intersection of the two which, even though a concern that should be addressed in all parts of society as a critical strategic area for development and economic activity, has in so far not been given a fair attention in educational and training practices. With this in mind VIRAL project aims to trigger higher level of knowledge, skills and application with reference to use of ICT in agricultural education and training in both formal and informal settings. Henceforth, VIRAL connects key HEIs and industry learning communities’ participants in the process of co-creating and testing new in and out of the classroom methods and practices, initiating professional pitch competitions (hackathons), and spinning off a distinctive regional university-business collaboration platform. Core learning experience involving agricultural and IT engineering teaching staff and students and passing on the knowledge gained onto professional advisory services and collaboration practices with the companies in the field is realized through intensive training experience and study visits to European universities. On the impact level boosted ICTs use in agriculture underpins sustainable rural development, increases resilience of rural families, improves access of farmers to needed services, and further empowers women and youth living prospects in rural areas.

"Entrepreneurship and Innovation skills are very important for employment and self-employment therefore we want to address the challenge of higher education students, graduates and other young people lacking those skills as well as lacking opportunities to acquire those skills through education, training and practical implementation. Consortium created this project in order to help youth to obtain a better training in terms of entrepreneurship, ICT and innovation for increasing their open innovation capacities. Another goal is to improve curriculum of HEIs regarding open innovation. The overall objective is to help students to acquire and to implement innovation skills for co-creation and co-development of projects proposed by enterprises and other organizations. Partners want to accelerate innovative ideas in an international context involving participants from 2 Western Balkan Partner Countries and one EU Programme country (Slovenia). Specific objectives are: raising the level of awareness of stakeholders regarding the usefulness of concept of open innovation (for boosting innovative behavior of youth); developing and implementing curricula and trainings for open innovation, rising capacities of NGOs and youth for entrepreneurial skills, problem-based learning and open innovations. Target market are: youth, youth organizations, SMEs, higher education institution, local authorities, local NGOs involved in training and education. We expect to involve 200 youth as participants to training and Hackathon events. Our promotion activities will reach population of 50000 people out of which at least 50% will be youth. Results are: creation of one curriculum program for open innovation; 4 training programs for empowering open innovation skills of youth dealing with: technical, media literacy, interactive and research skills; 3 pilot open innovation projects developed on Hackathon (or similar) activity in Mostar and Bar; increased awareness of population, business and public sector on open innovation. Project partners will also improve their technical and digital capacities for supporting youth in open innovation in future and training modules will be digitally recorded and available for future use on online platform. Project envisions inclusive approach with all relevant stakeholders from ""Quadruple Helix"" (academia, business, government and the non-governmental sector) in all our development and implementation activities youth will be consulted and involved as we want to adjust training and curriculum program to their specific need with inputs from all relevant stakeholders."

A single network of excellence will be created covering territory of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter FB&H) implementing “no-wrong door” concept. This Network (Business, Innovation and Technology Network-BITNET) will build on the results of the Business Information and Technology Innovation Network-BITIN that has been successfully operating since 2009 offering integrated services in support to business and innovation. The partners agreed to work together within the Enterprise Europe Network 2017-2020 offering to their clients a variety of the Network services. This Network will be a member of the Enterprise Europe Network giving its contribution to increased competitiveness of FB&H (B&H) and EU companies. The network of competent and proficient partners will implement the project. Consortium partners are: The Foreign Trade Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FTC), located in Sarajevo (FTC)- coordinator; Sarajevo Economic Region Development Agency (SERDA) located in Sarajevo, University of Sarajevo (UNSA) located in Sarajevo, INTERA Technology Park (INTERA) located in Mostar, Zenica Economic Development Agency (ZEDA) located in Zenica, BIT Centre (BIT) located in Tuzla and Development Agency of the Una-Sana Canton (DAUSC) located in Bihać. All the partners are strategically chosen and positioned in FB&H, namely the cities are the main centres of economic activities in FB&H and most of SMEs are concentrated around these cities. The Consortium partners that will be delivering Key Account Management (KAM) services and services to enhance the innovation management capacity of SMEs, within the project, will be UNSA, INTERA and BIT. All these activities will support SMEs on their way of becoming more competitive internationally.

The KnowHub project will reconnect universities and enterprises in the Western Balkans to support the development of innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem through knowledge transfer. This cooperation will sustain and further grow the research and practical teaching capacities of the targeted universities, will increase the international competitiveness of the enterprises and will provide students with practical experience enhancing their (self)employability. This will be achieved through setting-up of Commercialisation Hubs at the European University of Tirana and University of Vlora in Albania, University of Sarajevo and University of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina and at the University of Montenegro. The Hubs will join knowledge, resources and infrastructure from different university units and centres serving as a one-stop-shop for cooperation with industry. Each Hub’s placement, strategy, business plan and portfolio of instruments will be tailor-made to the needs and capacities of the universities from the project. This will enhance the full potential of each university and the Hubs’ sustainability. Within the scope of this project the Hubs and the Partner Country Universities (PCUs) will develop capacities in Rapid Prototyping and Lean Manufacturing through study visits and trainings, as well as peer-mentoring from the EU universities. At least15 enterprises will be engaged in university-enterprise cooperation projects including more than15 professors and 45 students. The project will also develop the Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) capacities at the PCUs. Academic staff will be trained (≥25 professors) in order to increase both the commercialisation of research through entrepreneurial activities (start-ups and spin-offs) and to embed I&E topics and skills into (≥25) technical courses. The first generation of (≥50) students active in the Hubs will be trained on STEM Bootcamp increasing their (self)employability.