Services that strengthened university-business partnerships, with the Innovation Voucher

The Fusióni3 Valle Innovation Voucher proved to be a concrete opportunity for the 20 companies benefiting from the project, including those not participating in the Maturation Fund, to advance their initiatives and strengthen their ties with universities. Through this instrument, the companies were able to address previously defined challenges through technical and commercial validations that, for the most part, met initial expectations.

According to Marcela Mora, coordinator of Business Strengthening at Fusióni3 Valle, many of these organizations already had a prior base that facilitated the use of the voucher.

“They had already drafted their project for the Maturation Fund, so they had a preconceived idea that they were able to bring a little closer to reality, thanks to the joint work with the universities,” he explained.

The voucher program had a service-oriented approach, with an average development time of six months. This process was characterized by constant participation from the companies: regular meetings were held to present progress, validate service development, and adjust the scope when necessary.

“The companies were very open, not only in tracking deliveries, but also in contributing and giving ideas,” the coordinator said.

The support provided to companies included access to production facilities, software, and human resources, as well as ongoing mediation between academic terminology and business expectations. In several cases, this process broadened the entrepreneurs’ perspective without straying from the requirements defined in the initial challenge and paved the way for future collaborations with universities.

From a university perspective, the experience also represented significant learning. For the University of San Buenaventura Cali , which developed two innovation vouchers with the companies Grupo North and K-listo , the process allowed them to work on real challenges in the productive sector under specific conditions of time, resources, and objectives. Professor Gustavo Agudelo, director of the Business Administration program, explained it this way:

“For the university and for me, as a consulting project manager, the vouchers were a valuable opportunity to connect industry and academia around real-world challenges. Companies were able to verify that the university has highly skilled human capital and the technical and methodological capabilities to propose viable, measurable solutions aligned with the market and operations.”

At the same time, universities were challenged to better understand business dynamics and adapt their communication and work methods to the expectations of the productive sector, thus strengthening their ability to respond to specific innovation challenges.

In this way, the Innovation Voucher was consolidated as a space for mutual learning that strengthened capabilities, generated trust and opened new avenues of collaboration between companies and universities within the innovation ecosystem promoted by Fusióni3 Valle.