Returning from Warsaw I jotted down a few notes about the experience I had coaching entrepreneurs this week at Europe Unlimited?s Biotech Venture Academy.
The venture academy format brings together leaders of young technology companies to pitch their businesses to a group of coaches, a group that included active venture capitalists, professional business advisors, and experienced entrepreneurs - including your correspondent. The project is funded by the European Commission, and the entrepreneurs can participate for free.
I enjoy this kind of exercise, however my interest was not merely academic. I?ve been asked to help bring the Biotech Venture Academy to Budapest in June this year. So how well does this format work?
Continue reading ‘How well does the Venture Academy format work?’
As part of the NETIES project, my partners and I are conducting surveys in three markets (Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) to determine the barriers and bottlenecks for small businesses participating in FP6 projects, as well as identify success stories.
One of my biggest barriers is Hungary’s overly restrictive data protection law. In order to conduct this survey, I need to obtain lists from EC partner organizations of companies that have taken part in FP6, as well as earlier programs.
Continue reading ‘Hungarian data too well protected?’
SMEs active in the life sciences area can benefit from a free (!) participation in the European coaching programme opened for biotechnology teams from the new member states. Five highly interactive BIOTECH Venture Academies will be organised in Warsaw, Budapest, Tallinn, Brno and Sofia and over 100 promising biotech companies and research teams will be selected. All participants will have an opportunity to improve their skills in developing and presenting their business plans and to network with experienced entrepreneurs, consultants and investors as potential partners from all around Europe.
The first Biotech Venture Academy will be held on 22nd of March, 2005 in Warszaw. The basic information including the programme and application forms can be found at www.e-unlimited.com/BioVentureAcademy. The deadline for applications for the last selection round is on Friday, March 11.
The NETIES team will be represented in Warsaw and your feedback will be taken into account when preparing the next event in Budapest in June. Do you have some nominations for biotech companies active in your country?
This transcript (http://www.sbs.gov.uk/default.php?page=/speeches/houseofreps.php) is of the UK’s Director General of the Small Business Service, an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry.
It’s difficult to read this - either as a small business owner, a support of enterprise or someone who works in the enterprise sector - without significant reservation that the PR content significantly outweighs the real benefit.
Continue reading ‘US/UK “love in” on entrepreneurship’
I recently attended a press event at International Trade and Development Hungary (ITDH), held under the auspices of the Hungarian International Press Association (HIPA), where I took part in a roundtable Q&A with ITDH boss, Adam Tertak. I was particularly keen to hear his views on Hungary’s high tech sector, and roles of small startup companies and SMEs.
ITDH’s mission is to aid the inflow of foreign investment in Hungary, especially by assisting investors. In the early days of Hungary’s privatization, explained Tertak, who recently left Ernst & Young to ITDH, the organization didn’t have to do all too much. During the 1990’s Hungary received the majority of all foreign investment in Central Europe.
Continue reading ‘Meet ITDH’
At this year’s IST conference in the Hague it was already the tenth time when the European Prizes were awarded for innovative products in the field of Information Society Technologies - the European IST Prize. The competition supported by the European Commission is open for any organisation developing products with a high market potential and evidently applicable in industry and society. It is expected that practical application of R&D results on the market will have also a positive impact on society (employment, creation of new markets, increase of global competitiveness, etc.). Continue reading ‘IST Prize: ten years after’
The European Commission will launch disciplinary proceedings against Slovakia over inadequate implementation of EU laws in the electronic communications field, EC spokesman Martin Selmayr told the TASR news agency December 6. The Commission has found several shortcomings in the implementation of electronic communication laws in Slovakia, despite the fact that the country adopted the legislation into its national legal framework one year before joining the European Union. Similar proceedings will also be launched against other new European Union members, the European Commissioner for Information Society, Vivian Reding, confirmed. These include the Czech Republic and Estonia, which have not yet even adopted the regulatory framework, as well as Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Slovenia, which are encountering similar problems as Slovakia.
Source: The Slovak SpectatorÂ
“A new comparison between the countries in East and Central Europe shows just how well economic reforms work. The data show that those that abandoned central planning the fastest are the best off today. In many of the more successful countries, the prospect of EU membership has been a decisive factor for enacting the reforms.”
The author goes on to compare a recent EBRD report, that shows quick reformers are faring better economically, with a UN report that shows citizens of these countries are living better lives according to a Human Development Index.
In this post I noted that yet another Indian company is setting up operations in Hungary and asked why this is happening. Indian wages are cheaper, geography shouldn’t matter in IT outsourcing, and I can’t imagine India is running out of programmers.
This article offers some of those answers, and it’s written from an Indian perspective. The answer is that Europeans are not used to long-distance outsourcing, and so the Indians are coming to them. The see Central Europe as a gateway into Western Europe.
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?’
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