By the late 90’s it had become obvious that the model of the Greek economy had to take into account the principles of sustainable development.
Corallia was established as a Unit of Athena Research Center in 2005 and is in the first organisation established in Greece for the management and development of innovation ecosystems. Corallia has supported all actors to cooperate in a coordinated and structured manner: companies of all sizes, universities, research centers, financial institutions, venture capital and business angels, national and regional authorities, with impressive tangible results in employment, exports, patent applications, all economic development indicators and mainly in the cultivation of a healthy entrepreneurial culture.
The innovation and entrepreneurship development program of the Microelectronics cluster commenced in 2006 with the support of the European Regional Development Fund and the Operational Program “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” and within 10 years it yielded impressive results in key performance indicators such as revenues, exports, employment, and private investments.
Leveraging this know-how, we set out in 2009 to support the Space technologies and applications cluster (si-Cluster) while in 2011 we established the Gaming and Creative Technologies & Applications cluster (gi-Cluster). Both clusters within just 5 years of operation yielded impressive results and contributed to the growth of the Greek economy.
In 2007 the first Innovation Hub was established in Athens (a1-innohub) followed by p1-innohub in Western Greece in 2011 and the a2-innohub in Athens in 2014.
Furthermore, Corallia implements several business-support initiatives to strengthen innovation, entrepreneurship and regional development, focusing particularly on how to stimulate innovative youth entrepreneurship, with prominent examples being the business accelerator “egg – enter-grow-go” in cooperation with Eurobank, and the “Startab” entrepreneurship program in cooperation with the Prince’s Trust International