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’
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’
Vienna’s position as CEE’s ICT capital has suffered quite a blow by IBM’s announcement to move its CEE headquarters to Prague. Beware: I love Prague, I live there, but the decision’s wording “to move growth market activities to growth markets” sounds rather shallow if applied to the Czech Republic. Sure the country has growth potentials that the EU15 have lost long ago, but then why not move IBM CEE to Ukraine or Russia right away?
Continue reading ‘IBM CEE: Na shledanou to Vienna’
I was in Prague earlier this month conducting a partner search for a social networking company. While I cannot comment on the specifics of that business, I can pass on a few observations about the Central European Internet market.
The online populations of Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Austria are relatively small. They are linguistically and culturally isolated. Even the Austrians, who share a common language with Germany and part of Switzerland, prefer to use Austrian websites. This limits the scale of any online business that addresses a single Central European market.
However, it would be a mistake to conclude that there aren’t any decent opportunities in these markets.
Continue reading ‘Online opportunities in Central Europe’
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?’
This week I will be away for business in Prague, representing a social networking company preparing to launch a social networking site in the Czech Republic. I would be pleased to meet with any nowEurope readers while in Prague. (Write me at: steve [at] noweurope [dot] com)
While Budapest and Prague might seem like neighbors on the map, I will travel all night by train to get there. However, one difference on this trip is that I will be able to sleep. From January 1, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia are part of the Schengen system. That means no more midnight knocks to check my passport.
I will share my observations about the Czech online market upon my return to Budapest later this week.
I am pleased to be able to contribute for the first time to a new nowEurope issue that so far has been quite underestimated in some European countries: Technology transfer, in particular in ICT.
The core business of CITT is to devise a strategy to establish and get running a viable cooperation between the ICT industry and research. Although a lot has been done recently on national and EU levels, Europe still gives away too much technology and know how to competing markets.
Continue reading ‘CITT: Add “Technology Transfer” to Europe’s vocabulary!’
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’
Brno-based company ZONER software is renowned especially among digital photography audiences and companies that need to Internet domain registration and web hosting. Its successes abroad are less known. The latter was the subject of my interview with Robert Sobola, director of Zoner’s software division.
In 1993, Milan Behro and Roman Slavinsk founded a company focused on developing a graphics editor named Zebra. Three years later, Zoner expanded its scope of activities and started to provide Internet domain registration and web hosting. Czechia.com was the very first Czech server in the .com domain.
Continue reading ‘Zoner Software: Digital Photography as a Lifestyle’
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