According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), multinationals have been the key driver of Central European business innovation in recent years. While this innovation has brought benefits, it has not helped local companies, nor has it prepared the region for the challenges ahead.
In fact, a dependence on multinational innovation has left Central Europe’s economies vulnerable, according the EIU report entitled ‘A Time For New Ideas: Innovation in Central Europe‘, sponsored by Oracle Corporation. While a handful of local SMEs have managed to innovate, the region faces a shortage of talent and a lack of support for innovation among local governments.
Continue reading ‘EIU: Multinational innovation in CEE is not enough’
Today I would like to present you one Viennese research institution and one company (Competence Center) successfully involved in R&D-activities. Both of them are quite important for our city.
These two organizations have an excellent international reputation and both of them are running successful cross-border projects and have finalized some very interesting ones in the past.
Continue reading ‘Vienna, Austria – A Spot of Excellence’
We are still in the early phase of our publishing effort here at nowEurope connected with the Centrope ICT transfer project and keep identifying the main issues and common interests in our region of the Central Europe.
Technology transfer is a term widely used but it is often understood in quite different ways. Some people even take it just as another buzzword and so let’s take a closer look what it represents for us. For you. What are the topics or concrete questions interesting you and us the most?
Continue reading ‘What technology transfer questions interest you most?’
Gate2Start is a name of another Framework Programme project focused on the ICT sector and technology transfer. It is a part of the broader Europe Innova initiative addressing the exploitation of research-based innovation and bringing entrepreneurship and market expertise at the start of applied research.
Several coaching and networking events were run in several countries over last two years and there have been also developed some outputs the CITT and NowEurope community can benefit from.
Continue reading ‘Gate2Start help for ICT researchers’
The title of this post is a quotation from Meir Brand’s presentation, delivered at Innovation Thursday in Prague last week. The event attracted about 130 people and was organised in cooperation with our FIRST Innovation Park and the CITT project. Michael Novak and I also took part in the founding meeting of the Innovators Club where we talked to several key ICT innovation players in the Czech Republic.
I wrote down a few remarks that seem to me highly relevant to the technology transfer activities within CITT and thus I am offering them as the starting points for our cluster strategy development.
Continue reading ‘Some secrets are more valuable when shared’
I recently had a drink with two Hungarian entrepreneurs who are working on an interesting mashup. They’ve created a front end for Google that closely resembles the functionality of Startlap.hu (for my Hungarian-impaired readers, this translates as “start page”.)
Their creation, Godzi.hu (no idea what that means) is now in public beta. The functionality is, indeed, impressive. But how do the founders take this great idea and make it into a business?
Let’s start by talking about what Godzi does.
Continue reading ‘Godzi is a refreshing idea but will people use it?’
Thursday afternoon I spent in Prague at an event dedicated to investments into technology start-ups. I was listening to a VC fund, two business angels and two incubators sharing their views with an audience of mostly ICT entrepreneurs.
The whole concept of Innovation Thursdays is focused on innovation in the Czech Republic and on bringing together innovators, investors and policy makers. Take a look at the opening event of the series held in the Senate hall (video archive and photos).
Continue reading ‘Can Central Europe follow Israeli innovation examples?’
Let me continue to post some remarks to the previous notes on the new initiative the “Centrope ICT technology transfer” which broadens the variety of activities taking place in the so called “Centrope region”. The region accounts for about six million inhabitants.
Why and how did it all start? The CITT project was initiated by the Vienna IT Enterprises Platform of the Vienna Business Agency more than a year ago. VITE is the network for IT companies, research-, development- and educational institutions which have their seat in Vienna. The main goals of VITE is raising awareness for the value of cooperation and implementing existing skills and ideas to initiatives.
Continue reading ‘The plant bears its flowers in clusters’
I’m pleased to announce that we’re now preparing to introduce a new round of contributors to nowEurope, the members of the CITT consortium. CITT is an EU project co-funded under the 7th Framework. I’ll let our CITT project leader, Zuzana Lettner, tell you more about CITT. My purpose with this post is to tell you a little about where we’ve been and where we’re going.
I’ve always been fascinated with how new technologies get turned into businesses. When I started nowEurope, back in 1995, I was interested in meeting people in Europe who wanted to start businesses on the Internet. We talked about business models, investments and exciting new startups. Several of my readers went on to meet each other, face to face, and a few of them even launched businesses together. This current iteration of nowEurope isn’t so different. However, the circumstances have changed.
Continue reading ‘Welcome CITT!’
I enjoy living in Hungary, however I’ve spent much of the last ten years working on projects focused outside of Hungary. For example one recent employer, Indextools, has built a thriving business selling Web Analytics services in North America and Western Europe, but until recently they didn’t have ANY business here in Hungary. The local market simply wasn’t ready.
So is Hungary ready now? I’ve been talking to a few people in the local market in an attempt to find that out. The answer is significant, because Web Analytics is an essential part of realizing the commercial potential of the Internet medium.
Continue reading ‘Is Hungary ready for Web Analytics?’
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