64th SPICE Meeting 96th ICECE Work Group event

Richmond, Virginia, United States
18 – 20 May 2003

The Annual NBIA Conference one more time was the meeting point for the business incubation industry. Hundreds of participants from all around the globe took advantage of the large number of presentations, workshops and discussions about almost any topic important for business incubation development. The start of iDISC, the World Bank project to support business incubator development in developing countries was presented during a special workshop by the proj-ect organizers; ANPROTEC, the Brazilian Business Incubator and Technology Park Association, and IBI, the Inter-national Business Incubator, San Jose, California.

The 7th International Summit of Business Incubation Associations, chaired by Dinah Adkins with support of Heinz Fiedler was attended by a large number of association representatives. The main topics were to agree on a definition for the term "business incubator" and to further work on the issues already discussed at the Dortmund Summit; Securing and maintaining the quality of business incubator services. Further information about the discussion and outcome of this Summit is available under Summit.

A special initiative operated under "code 1809". This was Barbara Harley's hospitality suite offering snacks and drinks every night after the official program finished. Very quickly "1809" was the meeting point for international conference attendees, the place to gather with old friends and make new contacts.

The Richmond SPICE Meeting focussed on issues already discussed in Vilnius:. The results of the Vilnius meeting served as a basis for discussion. Members basically agreed with the proposed direction of the changes for the "A & O" and made a number of suggestions for modifications. Concerning finance a "modest" raise of fees found approval. In parallel other sources for raising income (projects, more members /countries) and saving cost should be used. The outcome of the Richmond meeting will be carried forward for further discussion to the next SPICE meeting.

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