On Thursday 5 December, the Castellón Global Program began, an initiative promoted by espaitec (the Science, Technology and Business Park of the Universitat Jaume I – UJI) and the Castellón Council Offices, which addresses entrepreneurs and businesspeople from this province with experience in business development, ambitious objectives and with a high growth potential.

After a selection process, in which well-known regionally based businesspeople participated, nine companies were selected to participate in the first edition of this programme. The most highlighted sectors were Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), to which six of the selected companies belong, where solutions to render the following services were found: Internet access services, computer security or the development of applications, among others.

Apart from ICT, the health sector was represented by the participation of one company dedicated to researching health and pharmaco-economy results. The energy sector was represented by one firm which, in recent years, has researched, developed and commercialised high-performance geothermal energy extraction equipment. Finally, the ceramics sector was represented by one company which counsels, commercialises and offers technical assistance for technological solutions for decoration by means of inkjet printing.

During the month of December, the first phase of the programme will take place, which is training. It is given in 6 4-hour intensive training modules. For this phase, the Castellón Global Program counts on the collaboration of experts in marketing, customers, strategies, management, products, agile methodology, business models, business growth and financing. Participants will learn to present a business project in an appealing, convincing manner by a micropresentation methodology (elevator pitch).

The second project phase will take place in the first 4-month period of 2014, which consists in individual mentoring and coaching sessions according to the requirements of the selected companies and businesspeople. During these sessions, the selected projects will be available to the professionals from the various areas with whom the knowledge acquired according to their strategy is implemented.