How do you get children to appreciate art? Let them climb all over it suggests Fréderic Iriarte, who designs innovative playground equipment for children and adults. Thanks to the Enterprise Europe Network, his recreational sculptures may soon be seen all over Europe.

Iriarte, a French-born artist who has been living in Sweden for 25 years, came up with the playground sculpture idea while teaching industrial design at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology.

“I am constantly thinking about how I can be more involved in the evolution of society,” he says. Unimpressed with his students’ ideas for playground equipment design, he developed his own – and founded a one-person company called Artotec.

For help finding clients he turned to the Enterprise Europe Network, whose 3,000 experts in 50 countries help businesses make the most of the European marketplace.

“We are here to help SMEs in as many ways as possible, from promoting themselves internationally to getting research funding,” says Rolf Andersson, a Network expert based at Acreo AB in suburban Stockholm.
Acreo is a Swedish research institute, supporting small- and medium-sized companies with technology transfer, business networks and financial advice.

Besides giving Iriarte general business advice, Andersson drafted a partner request for the Network’s business matchmaking database, which contains thousands of profiles. A reply soon came from a Spanish SME which agreed to market Artotec’s products in that country.

“They can negotiate directly with city authorities, which I could not do on my own,” says Iriarte, who is pursuing contacts in three other countries. “With the Network on my side, I can confidently present myself as a European company.”