FIWARE Foundation, a non-profit driving the adoption of standards, announced a new partnership with accelerator companies Zabala Innovation Consulting and Gateway49. Per the Foundation, the partnerships formed in an effort to deliver technical expertise, help access funding, and offer business mentoring to startups and SMEs to develop innovative FIWARE-based smart solutions.

FIWARE has been supporting startups and SMEs since 2014 through its Accelerate Program. The program has helped over 1,000 startups receive upward of €80m in funding from the European Commission.

"Developing the technology is often the most expensive stage for startups,” said marketing manager at FIWARE Foundation Tonia Sapia, in a press release. “The startups enrolled in our program don't have to deal with this issue as they can use our own FIWARE platform to design solutions from scratch and then scale up, by developing solutions in other verticals.

“By breaking the traditional barriers for technology enablement and business acceleration with Open Source technologies and standards, FIWARE Accelerator encourages the development of scalable, interoperable and disruptive smart digital solutions to accelerate businesses, increase competitiveness and facilitate the diversification of businesses across many domains.”

As a member of the program, companies receive funding and open call opportunities, as well as business development guidance, global visibility and networking, prototype testing, and access to global portfolios, among other things.

Zabala and Gateway49 have been added specifically to create business opportunities and deliver technical training for the startups and SMEs.

Zabala has over 30 years of experience preparing European research and innovation project proposals and is currently managing over 31 million EUR in cascade funding opportunities.

Gateway49 was created in cooperation with Lübeck's Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Glocal Consult after FIWARE’s involvement with the accelerator “SpeedUP Europe. An accelerator where open source was deployed to create solutions for smart cities, clean tech, and more.

For more information, visit https://www.fiware.org/about-us/.

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Perry Cohen, associate editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content editing and creation in addition to podcast production. He also assists with the publication’s social media efforts which include strategic posting, follower engagement, and social media analysis. Before joining the ECD editorial team, Perry has been published on both local and national news platforms including KTAR.com (Phoenix), ArizonaSports.com (Phoenix), AZFamily.com, Cronkite News, and MLB/MiLB among others. Perry received a BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State university. He can be reached by email at perry.cohen@opensysmedia.com. Follow Perry’s work and ECD content on his twitter account @pcohen21.

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