As part of INNOMED-UP)” project in collaboration with seven European Union academic, research and professional institutions, in addition to Palestine, Jordan and Tunisia, represented by the cities of Hebron, Nablus, Amman and Tunisia and funded by the European Union, the training program for SMEs owners was launched on Monday, 14 June 2021 in the Hall of the Palestinian Engineering Association /Nablus Branch. 17 craftsmen will be participated in the training activity, bearing in mind that the SMEs training program will continue for 10 days, spread over four weeks.

The training program was opened by the project manager Dr. Shadi Ghadban and the project communication officer Dr. Mohammad Jawabreh, with the representatives of the project advisory committee that represented by Dr. Amal Hudhud from Nablus Municipality, Mr. Mufeed Salah - Director of the Directorate of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Mr. Hamdallah Afaneh - Director of the Directorate of the Ministry of Culture, Mr. Iyad Breik from Nablus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Eng. Huda Zarour from EQA, In the presence of Dr. Sami Hijjawi from Annajah University and President of Palestinian Engineering Association - Nablus Branch and Eng. Anwar Arafat representatives of the of the Palestinian Engineers Association, as well as the participants of SMEs owners.

Dr. Shadi Ghadban has opened the meeting and welcomed the Attendees and stressed the importance of cooperation for the continuation of the project. He also gave an introduction to the project's activities and future activities. On the other hand, Dr. Mohammad Jawabreh has pointed out that the project pursued to realistically reflect products and implement the pilot ideas proposed by craftsmen in the development of urban spaces in the Old Town/Nablus as well as in Hebron.

The Director of the Directorate of Tourism and Antiquities, Mr. Mufeed Salah, noted the importance of Palestinian craft products, which are characterized by manual labour, authenticity and high competitiveness at the local and international levels, and noted the Ministry's interest in participating projects and its efforts to support them and their success. He also stressed the importance of protecting local handcrafted products from imitation and theft of intellectual property, and Mr. Hamdallah Afaneh shared him his view of the importance of this and its contribution to preserving the value and authenticity of the product and their willingness to support these participants in all possible ways.

Dr. Amal Hudhud has also emphasized the need to invest in such projects, which are concerned with SMEs and contribute to their effective and practical upgrading and guide craftsmen and the community as a whole to adopt environmentally friendly practices. Dr. Shadi Ghadban concluded the opening session and thanked everyone for attending.

Then, training activities began for the first meeting on the theme of circular innovation with the training team. The meeting sought to enable trainees to propose ideas that would reflect an appropriate value to the local environment, raise awareness of design thinking as a modern and important area of innovation and development, and guide trainees to adopt a circular economy concept in manufacturing new and creative products.

For the activities published in the project to date, please visit the INNOMED-UP Facebook official page.