The call for proposals for the “Satellite and Aerospace Industry Promotion” Plan was announced in San Carlos de Bariloche in an event held yesterday at INVAP’s headquarters. It was reported there that the State-owned company of the Province of Río Negro became the first in this sector to be included in the regime of Knowledge Economy Law.
Details on this first call for proposals were provided by the National Director of Open Innovation, Mariana Piotti. The event was also attended by the Vice-Governor of the Province of Río Negro, Alejandro Palmieri (via videoconference from Viedma); the Mayor of San Carlos de Bariloche, Gustavo Genusso; the National Deputy Secretary of Industry, Julieta Lousteau, and her counterpart of Knowledge Economy, María Apólito. On behalf of INVAP, its President, Hugo Albani; the new Vice-President, Soledad Gonnet; and the General Manager, Vicente Campenni, among other authorities, were present.
In this context, it was announced that INVAP will join the regime of the Knowledge Economy Law –passed in October 2020,– which seeks to promote new technologies, generate added value, foster quality employment, facilitate the development of small and medium enterprises (PYMES, in Spanish) and increase exports, among other objectives.
“We hope that this province may continue to support what is already being developed and has become a true State policy: that of attending to the country’s needs in space and satellite issues, and giving us a vision for the future,” stated INVAP’s President, Hugo Albani.
In this regard, Albani highlighted the manufacture of eight satellites in Río Negro’s territory: “Six of them are low orbit Earth observation satellites, led by the Argentine National Space Activities Commission (CONAE, in Spanish). And then, when the Argentine Company for Satellite Solutions (ARSAT) was created, there was a clear decision to occupy Argentina’s air space with products manufactured in the country, a decision that made possible a further development of the construction of satellite platforms to cover stationary orbits.”
“It has generated a great demand of work training. We were able to transfer a lot of knowledge to small companies that risked their capital in this entrepreneurship. They trusted in a State policy that would show the way for many years, providing us with a great vision of the future and a lot of peace of mind,” concluded Albani.
For her part, the National Director of Open Innovation, Mariana Piotti, explained the details of the call for the “Satellite and Aerospace Industry Promotion” Plan, which will offer non-refundable payments to strengthen processes and services in this sector.
According to her detailed account, the key point of the program is the different types of projects that will be supported. A first one seeks to strengthen the services; a second one will be focused on generating services, products or prototypes (in an individual or collaborative scheme); a third one involves productive scaling-up processes; and a fourth one includes projects oriented to technological platforms.
Recipients are public, private and mixed companies; technological institutions; research centers; cooperatives and mutual aid societies, among others. Contributions may range from 18,000,000 Argentine pesos per individual participant, up to a maximum of 46,000,000 Argentine pesos if proposals are jointly submitted.
In this call, the amount may reach 20,000,000 Argentine pesos per individual participant, and 50,000,000 for joint submissions if gender perspective is added. “To access this additional benefit, the project should either have an impact on gender matters, or the board of directors of the companies that apply must have a majority of female members,” emphasized Piotti.
