Amfilissos (Samos) SME Cluster
The Amfilissos Cluster focuses on ecologically informed development particularly in the Southern region of Samos, It involves SMEs who are service providers within an ecological context as well as SMEs who are producers of ecological products.
The initiation schedule for this cluster was as follows:
August 2010: Cluster formation started bottom-up
October 2010: Cluster facilitation meeting with key actors: confirmation of “Θαλασσιες Χαντρες” (“Blue Beads”) as the local cluster catalyst SME.
November 2010: Recruitment of potential SMEs and identification of their needs.
13 December 2010: Cluster Initiation meeting involving founder SMEs held: determines Cluster goals.
The cluster is brought together due to SMEs’ motivation to cope with the lack of infrastructure in the area, neglect, corruption, the economic crisis and the SMEs' need for survival – and to find collaborative and innovative solutions
- The collaborative actions by the SME's involved in the Samos Cluster (located mainly in the Amfilissos area and Ormos Marathokampos), on ecological, social and development promoting sustainability, are aimed to yield a new range of visitors to the area and short and long term residents, who are now attracted to Amfilissos on a leisure and work basis (much of the latter within the creative industries, with connections all over the world). - and consequently repopulating revitalising the area, (not just in the package tourist season). This enables the SMEs in the Samos cluster to survive in the own specific lines of profit –making business (restaurants, hotels, architects, building construction companies, manufacturers of organic products) See www.amfilissos.org for details.
Requirements for support from Bioenersis and CADIC
Samos Cluster Catalyst SME: “Οι θαλασσιές Χάντρες ('Blue Beads")
