Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Twitter revisited

Published on November 30, 2009 in Austria and Business innovation. 0 Comments Tags: CITT, clusters, EEN, Europe, facebook, marketing, social networking, social networks, Twitter, vienna, vite.

I have been following the nowEurope blog for a while now after my colleagues at VITE directed my attention towards it and want to take the opportunity to thank Steve for welcoming me to the community. It is very interesting to see how opinions are shaped and also can change in just a few months of time. In March this year, a discussion about Twitter took place in this blog. Back then, my colleagues from VITE both had the oppinion that Twitter is an interesting phenomenon but they didn’t believe in its full potential yet.

Now it is November and VITE has it’s own Twitter and Facebook accounts that are being constantly updated and utilised to be in regular contact with the IT community in Vienna and beyond it’s national borders. Being hesitant about the usefulness of Twitter at first, we at VITE have received very positive feedback for offering this additional source of information to our members and to everyone who is interested in the Viennese IT community.

Continue reading ‘Twitter revisited’

nowEurope is a good place to study international business

Published on November 16, 2009 in Current events. 1 Comment Tags: amber johnson, blogs, international business students, nowEurope, OnlineColleges.

Amber Johnson at OnlineColleges.net just wrote to say she’s included nowEurope in her list of 100 Best Blogs for International Business Students.

Thanks, Amber!

Assessing Hungary’s current generation of startups – the rules have changed

Published on November 16, 2009 in Current events, EU funding programmes, Hungary and Venture capital. 0 Comments Tags: biotech projects, budapest, business plans, central europe, entrepreneurs, esther dyson, Europe Unlimited, european commission, european competitiveness, european venture, InfomatiX, innovative companies, jeremie, startups, vc funds.

The Eurecan European Venture Contest, aims to identify world-class innovative companies with the potential to dramatically impact their industry and contribute to increasing European competitiveness and growth.

For the past five years, Europe Unlimited, has been running these events, and I’ve taken part in several as an expert reviewer. I also took part this year, at the EEVC 2009 event held recently in Budapest.

This year was different. Thanks to more than €100M arriving from the European Commission in December 2009, a large number of these companies actually have a chance to win funding.

Continue reading ‘Assessing Hungary’s current generation of startups – the rules have changed’

Tax issues the main barrier to cross-border SME business in Europe

Published on November 10, 2009 in Facts, figures & trends. 0 Comments Tags: andrea benassi, CITT project, cross border business, euractiv, research communities, technology transfer.

A central goal of the CITT project (under which nowEurope is financed) is to work out strategies to improve technology transfer between the business and research communities within the Centrope region.

However, a larger issue throughout the European Union is increasing the cross-border business activities of SMEs. Euractiv writes:

[M]ore than 99% of EU companies are small and medium-sized enterprises with no more than 250 employees and a maximum turnover of €50 million. However, only 8% of them engage in cross-border trade and just 5% have subsidiaries or joint ventures abroad, according to the European Commission.

According to experts, the key barrier is differing tax regimes.

Continue reading ‘Tax issues the main barrier to cross-border SME business in Europe’

European Union eBusiness Guide helps enterprises find software, solutions and services

Published on November 10, 2009 in eCommerce and Useful resources. 0 Comments Tags: ebusiness solutions, european union, information and communication technology, service providers, solutions guide.

I just found another interesting activity of the European Commission for our readers. On the IPR Helpdesk the following article has been published:

The European Commission has launched the new online service “eBusiness Guide for SMEs: eBusiness software and services in the European market”, which can be found on the European Commission’s Europa portal. This service gives enterprises an overview of the eBusiness and information and communication technology (ICT) market and helps them select the proper software products, solutions, and ICT service providers.

Providers need to register and provide overall information on their products and services in their national language. Then, users of the online service can find specific solutions by selecting a certain country and language. The service is free of charge. Currently, this tool features more than 1,000 eBusiness solutions providers and 1,500 products, including open-source software solutions.

You can find the eBusiness Guide at http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/e-bsn/ebusiness-solutions-guide/.

ICT for smarter use of energy

Published on November 9, 2009 in Facts, figures & trends and Useful resources. 0 Comments Tags: co2 emmissions, energy efficiency, european commission, ICT.

I just read an article that the European Commission has adopted the “Recommendation on mobilising Information and Communications Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy”.

The EU has committed itself to expanding the use of renewable energies by 20%, achieving a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 20% increase in energy efficiency, all by 2020.

ICT products and services currently cause about 8% of the consumption of electric power of the European Union. By that they cause about 2% of all CO2 emmissions in Europe.

On the other hand ICT can act as an enabler to save electricity in energyintensive sectors like buildings, transport and logistics. EU estimates that ICT can reduce the CO2 emmissions in these sectors by 15% until 2020.

You can find more details at http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/energy_efficiency/index_en.htm

Language barriers in Centrope?

Published on November 5, 2009 in Facts, figures & trends and Hungary. 0 Comments Tags: Hungary, language knowledge, university.

Following Bernd Kopacek’s post, I studied this year’s statistics of the applications to Hungarian higher educational institutions.

I was shocked to learn that 61.3% of applicants haven’t passed a foreign language exam. Only 30% have a medium level certificate, and 7.1% have high level language knowledge. (The source, in Hungarian, is here)

It is sad that these figures refer to university applicants, and not just those who have completed their secondary education.

In my opinion, one result of secondary education should be a strong knowledge of one or preferably two foreign languages. Unfortunately, this is not the current situation in Hungary. The only chance for more than 60% percent of the students is to make up for this deficiency during their university years.

I assume that your country is in a better situation. Could you share some statistics?

Innovation Awards: Yes, but.

Published on November 4, 2009 in Business innovation, Hungary and Innovation policy. 0 Comments Tags: Bernhard Schmid, Centrope, commercialisation, entrepreneur, Innovation, innovation award, innovation awards, start ups.

A comment to Bernhard Schmid’s post from Oct. 21.

The world’s economy is based on growth, and growth implies competition. If one grows, the other one shrinks, that’s a law.

Until a few years ago this has been restricted to businesses only. All sectors of industry and trade, from the lone entrepreneur to the multinational giant underlie competition, and naturally, there’s always the question of who’s the biggest, richest, best etc.

Recently, in connection with the commercialisation of public services of all kinds, research and education entered the game. Schools and universities find themselves in all kinds of rankings, the quality of life is being measured, the businessability (my creation) of countries is published and thus Hungary suddenly must learn of its unfriendliness towards start ups, and such listings themselves could be submitted to a ranking …

What does this have to do with innovation awards? Continue reading ‘Innovation Awards: Yes, but.’

It’s good to have friends in the North: ArcticStartup.com

Published on November 2, 2009 in Useful resources. 0 Comments Tags: aggregators, competitiveness, entrepreneurs, estonian company, ICT, internet, mobile, Prezi.

Checking with Google Analytics, I noticed an interesting website that has been sending a steady stream of visitors to nowEurope. ArcticStartup, founded in 2007, presents itself as the leading weblog reviewing and reporting on technology startups and growth entrepreneurship from the Nordic and Baltic countries.

I decided to return the favor by linking to the site and telling you all a little bit about it.

Continue reading ‘It’s good to have friends in the North: ArcticStartup.com’

(Mis)using IT for Structural Funds administration in the Czech Republic

Published on November 2, 2009 in Czech Republic and EU funding programmes. 1 Comment Tags: Czech Republic, electronic applications, electronic signature, electronic submission, funds, subsidies.

The Czech Republic (CR) like other European countries receives subsidies from the EU’s Structural Funds (SF). There are 26 operation programs in CR and all of them use some electronic system for receiving applications. There are three bigger online applications which applicants have to use.

So far it looks like an example of good practice. But, in my opinion, using IT in this area is a typical example of how to use IT to complicate the work of users.

Why there are three different big systems? Just because the ministries were not able to agree, so two ministries developed their own systems and the third developed a system which uses most of the operating programs.

Only one system uses an electronic signature and is totally online. So, the electronic submission is sufficient for the application. However, it is necessary after filling out the electronic applications with the other systems, to print the application and submit it in paper form! Usually in two or three copies … Why? To save the time and paper of official authorities.

Continue reading ‘(Mis)using IT for Structural Funds administration in the Czech Republic’