We gathered the final impression about NGI DAPSI with Augustin Radu from IMT Starter Incubator. Here’s what he shared with us.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and explain what was the role of IMT Starter Incubator in the NGI DAPSI project?
Augustin RADU, PhD engineer, entrepreneur and investor with more than 20 years of experience in the French Start-up ecosystem. I’m in charge with the Business Development and International Partnerships at IMT Starter Incubator. Our structure was in charge with the business training and
mentoring for the NGI projects.
During the projects lifetime’s, 46 teams and their data portability solutions were supported by NGI DAPSI. Having seen so many innovative solutions, what were the most common business challenges faced by the teams and what suprised you the most?
Most of the solutions we have seen were extremely technical and based on open source. We know that the business models around open source are not always very trivial. Therefore, our challenge was to make think the teams (except people from established companies were things were different) a little
different. Our goal was to “extract” the value of their products/services and always ask the question of “why” before starting to code. We have accomplished our mission because most of the teams worked very well and now they face the challenges with a different angle.
After 3 years, the NGI DAPSI project is coming to its end. What were the main benefits for IMT Starter Incubator to participate in NGI DAPSI?
For IMT Starter is very important to be involved in European Projects. It is part of our strategy. Each partner had a very big value in the actual project. Furthermore, being connected with the European ecosystem is a very valuable asset for the projects and start-ups that we have or we had in our programs that look for new opportunities in European countries.