nowEurope

We’re all familiar with the concept of ‘brain drain’. In the face of Communism and other hardships, some of Central Europe’s best minds have chosen to emigrate to countries that provide them better conditions for success.

According to this article, however, some of those people are now returning. Continue reading ‘Are the brains coming back?’

Reverting to the publication of the comparative survey study about e-Government in Central Europe, let’s keep in mind that the Austrian Computer Society (OCG) will organise the third Eastern European eGov Days in Budapest on March 17-18 2005, in conjunction with the fourth Austrian eGov Days in Vienna (14-16 March 2005). The Eastern European eGov Days are jointly managed by the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration.

The 2005 eGov days will address a number of topics including the opportunities and potentials existing for SMEs in doing business with government.

For more information:
Forum for European e-Public services

In August the Economist Intelligence Unit published a comparative survey study focused on introducing e-government in the Central Europe. The white paper style publication covers the new member states from Central Europe, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

Seven weighted criteria were examined for each of the countries ranked, collectively comprising 35 separate qualitative and quantitative indicators – Connectivity and technology infrastructure, Business and legal environment, Education and skills base, Government policy and vision, E-democracy, Online services for citizens and for businesses. The survey methodology was based on in-depth interviews with programme managers and direct participants in the local development.

Continue reading ‘e-Government in Central Europe’

I read with interest that Indian outsourcers Satyam Computer Services are setting up a facility in Hungary. It’s also worth noting the company’s stock rose 4%, based largely on this news.

Hungary is good business for Satyam largely because local wages are still lower than in Western Europe. According to the Satyam piece a programmer’s average salary in Hungary is $10,500 compared to $24,500 in Ireland.

However, the piece goes on to say the comparable wages in India are $7,500, so I can’t help but ask what are the advantages for an Indian outsourcer setting up in Hungary?

Is India running out of programmers?

Is there a tax advantage I’m not aware of?
Does geography make such a difference?

The cost advantages are clear for multinationals that set up programming here (this includes Ericsson, Siemons, Nokia, Motorola, EDS …) but I can’t see the argument for an Indian company. Any suggestions out there?

InterSoft, a.s., was established in 2001 as a company operating in information technologies.

The basic idea in establishing the company was the association of partners of the international R&D project Esprit 29065 “Web in Support of Knowledge Management in Company (KnowWeb)” supported by EU in the 4th Framework Program. The company was founded with the intention to build on international experiences of software development for domestic or foreign customers, to exploit the status and international business contacts of partners and to capitalize the competitive advantage resulting of this association.

In 2004 the company changed the scope of its business activities with more accent on modern information and communication technologies, and with a view to provide new types of services in this field. The change was related to Slovakia’s entry into the European Union and to the resulting global context for the company. Continue reading ‘InterSoft: Mastering the FP’

The European Commission organised on Friday 12 November 2004 a high level workshop to present the results of the study on good public national and regional policies in support of the competitiveness of the ICT sector, in which LL&A participated as a consortium member along with Fraunhofer Institute Systems and Innovation Research (FhG-ISI – Germany) and the Strategy, Technology and Policy Institute of the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO-STB). Continue reading ‘Improving the competitiveness of the European ICT sector: high level European workshop on good public national and regional policies’

NETIES is not going to map the ICT sector “only” (well – it goes across other industries anyway). One of the emerging fields still more attractive for investors is biotechnology including genetic modifications, bioinformatics, medical devices and many others.

In October we had in Brno one of the “Best of Biotech” events. The next ones were organised also in Bratislava and Budapest. They are a part of the international initiative awarding the best biotech projects and the tour covering Austria, Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. The third annual international business plan competition, Best of Biotech – get your business started! is organised by Life Science Austria (LISA), a programme run by Austria Wirtschaftsservice on behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Economy and Labour. The mission has been described as encouraging the development of the biotech scene in Austria, but also to improve cross-border collaboration between Austria and its neighbours.

The other day I was having lunch with my wife, an investment manager from one of few VC funds operating here in Slovakia. I brought her Steve’s article and asked for her comments.
Here are some points showing tech investment in Slovakia last year:

• All companies that received investment are considered rather high-tech and all investment occurred during the expansion phase of development. Interest in start-ups and seed capital is still limited (see Steve’s conclusion). Continue reading ‘Venture Capital is active’

A vivid example of a company with persistent patience before achieving success in participating in EU innovation programmes is Regio Ltd, the leading Estonian geoinformation systems provider. Regio has participated in a number of proposals as partner, both for FP5 and FP6, but also for eContent programme. The performance was poor in the beginning because a newcomer the company had difficulties in positioning itself into winning consortia and the technological solutions offered within the projects were not sufficiently innovative. But with the growth and maturity of the company the success rate has soared, topping with astounding 75% in FP6. The missing 25% from complete success is separated by the project, which is currently placed in the reserve list for IST call 5. We tried to find out what is behind such success.

Regio Ltd was established back in 1990 as geospacial information provider. The main business line at that time was cartography. Complete shift to digital technologies occurred in 1994, which in fact established Regio as an IT company rather than a mapping company. The shift to digital format was widely supported also by exponential growth of Internet and web-based products, where electronic maps constitute an important functional layer.

In 2000 Regio developers elaborated a first Mobile Positioning System in the world, testing it together with Ericsson Eesti AS and Rescue Services. Since then, MPS system has been one of the main products that have driven company’s growth. Today, Regio is one of the main MPS vendors to Ericsson, taking care for the operability of their middleware in Ericsson’s product range. Strategic partnership with Ericsson has lead Regio’s expansion to Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, Mexico, Romania, Slovakia.

With this, the original mapping company has actually developed into telecom value added service provider. International expansion has coupled with success in EU funding programs, where good credentials, partnership with Ericsson, participation in evaluation of proposals etc have helped the company to become a valuable partner in high quality EU consortia. Today, Regio participates or is about to start with the following IST projects: MOTIVE, QVIZ, WISECOM.

Regio has clearly managed to capitalize on its proprietary MPS technology, which has proven its value adding features in Ericsson’s network. Experience in promoting its innovative technology on international scales, has attracted interest towards the company also from major FP6 players, which have found Regio as a good partner and niche technology provider, which adds value to their projects. It is paradoxical, but up to now, Regio has not proposed any project into FP itself, success has come via participation in project consortia as a partner. This demonstrates clearly that starting with its own project is not the best solution since this requires a lot of efforts and bears large risk of failure. As an alternative, it might be worthwhile to focus on creating international visibility and positioning ones technology into mainstream innovations.