In the context of the visit to the Paul Wurth company by Francine Closener, Secretary of State of the Economy, on 2 December 2015, Paul Wurth S.A. and Technoport® signed a cooperation agreement on the setting up of a support programme for new technological and innovative companies.
For Paul Wurth, the initiative consists its incubator (Paul Wurth InCub) hosting young companies searching for support in the development and implementation of their entrepreneurial projects. These start-ups can not only benefit from physical space and infrastructure on the premises of Paul Wurth in Luxembourg-Hollerich, but also from their proximity to an experienced player with a long-standing tradition of innovation in order to receive technological support or market feedback.
This exchange of ideas and expertise will allow Paul Wurth to foster even better innovation, creativity and open-mindedness within its Group. To leverage these mutual advantages, the projects likely to join Paul Wurth InCub will be in line with Paul Wurth’s industrial and civil construction activities and will preferentially be related to fields such as environmental technologies in the metals industry, off-grid energy production, industry 4.0, advanced logistics and transportation concepts or smart and healthy buildings.
According to Francine Closener, Secretary of State of the Economy “This incubation programme set up by Paul Wurth and supported by Technoport is perfectly in line with the Luxembourg Government’s policy to develop an ecosystem able to offer best possible conditions for creating and developing technology-oriented and innovative projects and companies. In this way, the programme contributes to the diversification of the national economy, actively promoted by the Ministry of Economy.“
“For us, this is the first support programme set up with such an important industrial player. It is essential to encourage and establish mid and long term synergies between such partners and start-up companies in order to create an even more integrated ecosystem”, explained Diego De Biasio, CEO of Technoport.
“In addition to sharing the technological experience which is ours, it is crucial for an industrial group like Paul Wurth to be open to innovative ideas coming from the outside and to support promising projects – especially considering the technological challenges our society has to face at all levels. At the same time, this initiative will allow us to diversify our field of activity and to reduce our dependence on the steel industry”, underlined Georges Rassel, CEO of Paul Wurth.
This partnership will allow Paul Wurth to rely on a recognised actor in the field of support programmes for technological and innovative companies in Luxembourg. Technoport will provide assistance during the call for applications, in the selection process as well as during the follow-up of the projects applying for joining Paul Wurth InCub. On the other hand, Technoport can call upon Paul Wurth’s expert competencies to support the development of these companies.
