When is a crisis not a crisis? Entrepreneurs at Europe's SME Assembly look for the silver lining

Energy prices are falling, and inflation is slowly coming down, but bankruptcies are rising, and many European businesses are still struggling to survive.  How can they stay afloat?

The SME Assembly in Bilbao is Europe’s top event for small and medium-sized businesses. We went to see how firms are coping with the continuing economic headwinds, and trying to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

Spain's Basque country is one of Europe's leading innovation regions. Local research centre Tecnalia has designed a robot that has many potential uses.

"We want the robot to be able to do things like sanding, painting or laser cladding," said Damien Sallé, Tecnalia's Coordinator of Robotics and Automation.

"We take the information from the camera in 3D and then we compute the trajectories in 3D [so] that we cover the whole part and then we apply it to the robot."

Finding a niche market can make all the difference, like Orbik which tests cybersecurity levels in the design phase of industrial equipment.

"We work for railways, substations with a smart grid, industry in general and health systems as well," said Salvador Trujillo, Orbik's CEO.

"In the past most systems were isolated and the risk of being attacked was rather small, nowadays with the systems being connected to the internet, it is becoming more and more common for systems to be attacked," he added.

The SME Assembly aims to stimulate European businesses with high-level panels, interviews, and networking opportunities plus the prestigious Schumpeter Lecture, delivered this year by Professor Saras Sarasvathy.

"Uncertainty and crisis are opportunities and that’s what entrepreneurs do, right?" she said. 

"Crisis times are not things that you weather, crisis times are when you get up and