A lot of exciting presentations, networking, and a Member of the year award
The General Assembly of EPSI started with registration and networking, with participants exchanging their interests and expectations from the event. After the start of the event, the program was presented by the two executive directors of EPSI – Alberto Bichi and Rene Wijlens.
The President of EPSI Antonello Marega made an opening speech to all participants. He spoke about the development of the organization, as well as the future of sports and its attitude to climate issues, sustainable development, the aging population, and the so-called silver economy.
After that Elena Razzano from ESA – the European Space Agency presented the activities of the organization, shared examples of the application of space technologies in our everyday life, and then emphasized the important partnership with EPSI to find new applications of space technologies in sports. She gave concrete examples of how space technology and innovation are applicable in sports with satellite observations and athlete safety, as well as many others.
Then Sebastiano Lommi from EPSI shared the progress of members’ development, encouraged all organizations part of EPSI to be proactive, share their project ideas, and showed the new additions and functionalities to the Members Only Zone. Sebastiano shared more information about the activities of EPSI in 2022 with over 300 facilitated meetings and interactions between members.
The EPSI Member of the Year Award was then awarded. The evaluation criteria were presented by Alberto Bichi and the overall contribution award went to the Associazione Impianti Sportivi and was given to Ezio Ferrari and Tallo De Cristofaro. Next, the new names in the EPSI team were introduced – Venelin Dobrev (communication manager) and Panos Papageorgiou, who is the new project manager of the organization.
Next, EPSI’s current project activity was presented by Panos with all closing, ongoing and new projects. Alberto Bichi then spoke about the new line of work of EPSI – business development and the signing of an agreement with the Business Angels Community. Alberto presented the way of pitching business ideas through a special template. Then some business ideas were presented by EPSI members on the spot in the conference hall.
After a short coffee break, the plans for the future development of the organization were presented, among which the new communication strategy of EPSI was highlighted. A more detailed presentation was given by Venelin Dobrev, communication manager of EPSI. The day ended with an evening cocktail and networking among the participants of the event.