TRANSITION e-Mag #2 | Page 13

_12 In short Spark Sessions are: • promotional events to attract social entrepreneurs and innovators, and offer information, advice and guidance • an initial knowledge transfer on social innovation • a first harvest for good social innovation ideas • awareness events around social innovation related topics TRANSITION TIPS PRE (Paris) used its Spark Session as a launch event, giving an opportunity for selected SIs to meet each other, mentors and sponsors and offer resources to each other. It included a speed dating type event where mentors could pitch on their capabilities. POLIMI (Milan) ran ‘Scouting Sessions’ with partners as a way of promoting the programme – this helped to reach some innovators in sectors they wouldn’t otherwise have reached. SIP (Bilbao) experimented with running a ‘coompetition’ to promote TRANSITION, but it wasn’t very successful in bringing in applications, perhaps because there are too many other similar competitions. It’s now working more with partners to promote the programme.