The Erasmus project Peat Valley+ was a coalition of the Hanze University of Applied Science, Vocational School Terra in the Netherlands, the Vives University of Applied Science in Belgium and the university of Skövde in Sweden. This Alliance worked on the development of an external structure in the region to make the schools, students, researchers and teachers mobile in their own region. This project is linked to LLO and Regional Food Chain REFRAME.
Tencent is a Chinese IT company that offers a wide variety of products in the e-commerce, online advertising, online games and social network markets. Most of these services are centered around the central hubs of QQ and Weixin/WeChat. This allows for a spillover of users and a brand name that can be used for a variety of products. Most of Tencent’s software products are free to use, but allow users to buy small cosmetic upgrades. For Tencent, these value-added services are the main source of income. This differentiates the company from most of its competitors, which still rely mostly on online advertisements to monetize users of free services. Tencent focuses on ‘micro-innovation’, taking a proven concept and adjusting it to the Chinese market. The company is very strong in the domestic market, but has had trouble in foreign markets. More recently, Tencent started strategic partnerships with companies in segments where the company cannot become market leader on its own. Perhaps the company could also use this strategy for foreign market entry.
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The Knowledge Alliance for Communities of Practice for Healthy Lifestyle (COP4HL) aimed at developing and sustaining communities of practice (COP) in order to stimulate innovation and socio-economic development in the area of Healthy Ageing. Promoting Healthy Ageing, and specifically an Active & Healthy Lifestyle, is one of the biggest societal and economical challenges the EU is facing. A paradigm shift from health care and cure to prevention is essential since the traditional ways have proven to be insufficient to solve this complex problem. An impact-driven multi-sector approach is necessary to develop innovative products and services to change this for the better. The KA was composed of higher education institutes and businesses, supported by public authorities and non-for-profits, who are accepting the need of co-creating knowledge to stimulate innovation for an Active & Healthy Lifestyle. A local needs and assets mapping procedure, that assessed the national and local status quo in the area of Healthy Ageing/Healthy Lifestyles, served as starting point of the development of five communities or practice the communities of Groningen (the Netherlands), Odense (Denmark), Malaga (Spain), Kaunas (Lithuania) and Cascais (Portugal) plus an additional COP in Alcobaca (Portugal). These COP were focused on a common goal that was collectively decided in the local COP.
