PhotonHub at the EBN Congress 2025 – Coordination Meeting on Business Mentoring

From 18th to 20th June 2025, the EBN Congress, held at the premises of EU|BIC BIC Bizkaia Ezkerraldea in Barakaldo (Bilbao, Spain), served as the venue for a key coordination meeting of the PhotonHub project. The meeting brought together representatives of the EBN Third Parties involved in delivering business mentoring to photonics entrepreneurs at TRL 3–4 and TRL 5–6.

The following EU|BIC organisations participated in the discussions:

• EU|BIC CEEI Burgos (Spain) – Juan Carlos Martinez Barrio, Director of Project Development
• EU|BIC Laval Mayenne Technopole (France) – Valérie Moreau, Head of Network Relations
• EU|BIC Propelor BIC (formerly South East BIC, Ireland) – Michelle O’Rourke, Project Manager

These regular face-to-face meetings are essential to ensure consistent coordination and high-quality support for deep tech start-ups in the photonics field.

The agenda of the meeting focused on several key points:

• Sharing updates from the most recent Consortium Meeting (21–22 November 2024) and the Intermediate Review Meeting (11–12 June 2025) with the Third Party managers
• Reviewing the current status of mentoring activities delivered so far for entrepreneurs at TRL 3–4 and TRL 5–6, and preparing for upcoming assignments between April and June 2025
• Exploring the possibility of additional group mentoring activities coordinated by EBN to complement the existing offer and help achieve the project’s KPIs
• Refining and tailoring the mentoring topics to better address the specific needs of participating entrepreneurs
• Aligning on the delivery timeline and next steps across the three EU|BIC partners

This joint effort contributes to building a stronger support framework for photonics innovation across Europe.

Find more about the project here: https://www.photonhub.eu/