On Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th of October 2000, the first International Technology Partnering Meetings took place at Ifest. Firms and organisations looking for new technologies in the environment and energy sectors had an opportunity to meet providers of those technologies face-to-face in those two days. The IWT, which organises this technology transfer event through the Vlaams Innovatie Adviescentrum (VIA - Flemish Innovation Advice Centre), had arranged 225 meetings between providers and interested parties in the run-up to Ifest. So it promised to be very hectic for the two days at the Technology Partnering stand at Ifest.At the basis of the Technology Partnering Meetings lay the European Commission's preoccupation with bringing closer together the users and providers of new technologies at European level. To this end, a network of Innovation Relay Centers or IRC's had been set up in all member States of the European Community. For Flanders, the VIA functioned as the IRC. The VIA is a subdivision of the IWT, the Institute for the encouragement of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders.

As the largest and most wide-ranging trade-fair in the Benelux countries for the environment, energy and safety at work, Ifest 2000 is a highly appropriate platform for the exchange of environmental and energy technologies. So the IWT-VIA decided to take part in this fair with a technology-transfer event, the so-called 'Technology Partnering Meetings'.

Some time before, the IWT-VIA had invited all Flemish firms and research institutes to announce which new technologies they were able to provide or in which technologies they were interested. At the same time, the other IRC's did the same in other European member-States. "Every request or offer was screened and summarised into a so-called collaboration profile which also mentioned what kind of partner the requester or provider was looking for," said Monique Baeteman of IWT, spokesperson for the Ifest Technology Partnering Meetings. "People could consult all the collaboration profiles - both Flemish and European - which were put together in a catalogue a month and a half before Ifest via the Internet (http://www.iwt.be) and in printed form. People wanting to have a meeting with one or more interested parties or providers could do inform the IWT-VIA about it, and in this way 225 meetings had been arranged.

"Two days for 225 meetings - the schedule looked very tight, but everything had been carefully prepared beforehand. "Each meeting could last no more than 30 minutes," according to Monique Baeteman. "We were confident that the participants would agree on that. Previous experience with Technology Partnering Meetings taught us that participants appreciate the opportunities afforded by such events, and use the limited time to the maximum. Usually, we hear afterwards that firms reach things at a technology-transfer event like this which sometimes took months under normal circumstances."This is the first time that IWT-VIA had organised a Technology Partnering Meeting at Ifest. "The expectations are indeed very exciting," assured Monique Baeteman. "In many cases the technology transfers will be on an international scale. I think that Ifest is just the right platform for this. Of course, everything will be carefully evaluated afterwards, but based on the huge interest both at home and abroad, I really think we can say it's already a success."

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