This morning, the Science, Technology and Business Park of the Universitat Jaume I (espaitec) and the Castellón Council Offices have presented the Second Edition of Castellón Global Program. This initiative addresses entrepreneurs, businesspeople and general directors of companies in the province of Castellón who are experienced in business development, have ambitious goals and show good growth protential.

The objective of this programme is to help the innovative companies of Castellón to grow by facilitating their impact on the global market. For this purpose, a maximum of 10 projects will be selected, which will receive training and tutorship for several months. The programme also intends to allow more local companies participate in such programmes to help business acceleration and growth through autonomous and national promotion, in particular the Valencian Global and Lanzadera programmes.

After its first edition in 2013, in which nine business projects participated, today sees the start of the launching phase, when candidates for the second edition are received. This phase will continue until 12:00h on 25 July. Any companies interested in participating must have been officially set up between at least 3 months and 5 years ago, and have a minimum annual turnover of more than €50,000. To be able to participate, the following registration form must be filled in, and must be accompanied by an executive summary. All the information can be found at www.espaitec.uji.es and download the programme summary.

During the first 15 days of September, the projects will be evaluated by a Committee of experts who will select the 10 projects that will finally participate in the 2014 edition. For this selection, the following aspects, among others, will be considered: companies that offer innovative products or services; originality in the business model; this initiative is promoted by multidisciplinary teams with the ambition to grow and the capacity to expand to international markets.


About the 2013 edition

In 2013, the first edition of this programme took place in which nine companies from various areas in the province of Castellón participated: 2 from Vinarós; 2 from Benicàssim; 4 from Castellón; 1 from Almazora; 1 from Vila-real; 1 from Onda.

The sales of the participating companies and contracted staff members have increased by 48% and 22%, respectively. Three of the nine companies are operating in international markets and two have been selected to participate in the Valencian Global Program.

According to sectors, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector stands out, to which six of the selected companies belonged, which provide connectivity and computer security solutions, and develop applications and services for SMEs. The health, energy and industrial production technologies were represented by the participation of one company each.