Archive for the 'Facts, figures & trends' Category

Notes from Boston: the state of US venture capital

Published on March 21, 2010 in Current events, Facts, figures & trends and Venture capital. 0 Comments Tags: creativity, entrepreneurial mindset, equity investment, Innovation, investment, regional, risk, silicon valley, Venture capital.

In Boston, I recently attended the Annual VC Outlook Dinner, hosted by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest not-for-profit organization for entrepreneurs. The evening provided a snapshot of the investment climate here in the United States. Some of these insights may be applicable to other parts of the world, including Central Europe.

The evening included a panel discussion and dialogue. The panel was made up of representatives from six leading US venture capital firms: Highland Capital Partners; Battery Ventures; TVM Capital; Atlas Venture; Bain Capital Ventures; Commonwealth Capital Ventures; and Greylock Partners. These investors offered their views on the health of the US industry; what makes the investment climate in Boston different than Silicon Valley; and the importance of talent in the investment.

Here are some panel discussion notes. These views were shared by the majority, but I provide this recap with a disclaimer that these are opinions and interpretations. Perception may not match reality, but can influence reality.

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How to keep privacy in social media?

Published on January 30, 2010 in Facts, figures & trends. 6 Comments Tags: facebook, privacy, social networks, Twitter.

We read several posts here in nowEurope about the latest social media services. You can also see these fancy tools around this site.

However, I personally still keep myself away from Facebook, Twitter etc. My biggest doubt is how to separate the different aspects of my real and virtual life from each other. What are these aspects?

I work on several projects with interesting people, but basically they don’t care about my sport or hobby activities.
I do different sports. In one of my sport activities, most of the team don’t know each others’ business background. It is simply not important, we are there to enjoy the same sport.
I’m a member of an online community. We are there for a certain hobby, but don’t care about others’ business or sport activities.

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ICT Centrope: Conference on the “Digital Heart” of Europe

Published on January 29, 2010 in About CITT, Austria, Current events, Czech Republic, Facts, figures & trends, Hungary and Slovakia. 0 Comments

There’s tons of ICT conventions, and here’s another one, you might say, reading these lines. Yes, but (a frequent initiation in my blog posts, as I’ve recently realised), this is different. Why? Because ICT Centrope offers, as it says: A view on the ICT landscape of a region that was no region for quite a while. Since 1989, a lot has happened, and if we think of Europe, we must get rid of political structures that were initially created about 90 years ago.

The ICT Europe event looks at ICT business and research in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, focusing on technology transfer, highlighting opportunities and obstacles, and presenting best practices. Although this is an “end of term event”, this conference is the unofficial launch of a new project aiming to build a Centrope-based ICT cluster.

Our keynotes speakers are John Tait, Chief Scientific Officer at IRF, Vienna, and former Professor at the University of Sunderland, Francisco Eduardo De Sousa Webber, the CEO of Matrixware and Chairman of the Executive Board of IRF, and Eugen Antalovsky, CEO of the Vienna based Europaforum platform.

Our CITT team will present their findings, plans and tools. Regional experts will outline the technological and economical features of Centrope. Potential stakeholders and interested parties will have the opportunity personally meet the representatives of the cluster project.

The conference will be hosted by Vienna’s business agency WWFF and welcomes ICT entrepreneurs as well as researchers, opinion makers, strategists and decision makers, people who are involved in national and European ICT strategies, representatives of ICT platforms and the press.

Admission is free, but registration is required. For more information, click on the ad on this page or got to www.centrope-itt.eu.

Centrope is not just a new geographical term. With projects such as CITT which is behind ICT Centrope, and its successors, it is being filled with life. Join!

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Case study: What can we learn from Europe’s most successful cluster?

Published on January 13, 2010 in Business innovation, Case studies, Facts, figures & trends, Innovation policy and Venture capital. 3 Comments Tags: best practices, cambridge university, case study, Centrope, CITT, clusters, consortium, entrepreneurs, european commission, european venture, funding, startups, technology transfer, Venture capital, vite.

Since we’ve been talking about how clusters work, whether they work, and how to start one, it’s worth having a closer look at one of the most successful European examples. The so-called Silicon Fen, located around Cambridge University, has nurtured roughly 25% of all UK tech startups. Seven percent of all European venture capital is invested in Cambridge.

‘Can regional clusters be engineered?’ is an intriguing case study authored by Professor William Webb, Head of H&D and Senior Technologist at Ofcom. The article appeared in Ingenia Online, the journal of Britain’s Royal Academy of Engineering.

I’m afraid the news is not too optimistic for those for those of us hoping for quick, tangible results. According to Webb, the Cambridge Cluster emerged organically, took 15 years to become noticeable and required a further ten years to become a well-established phenomenon. However, the article does identify a number of best practices which we can apply here in the Centrope region.

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New EC study underlines the importance of pursuing technological openness for the future Ubiquitous Information Society

Published on December 18, 2009 in Facts, figures & trends and Useful resources. 0 Comments Tags: communications infrastructure, connectivity technologies, european commission, infrastructure evolution, intelligent web, knowledge society, ubiquitous utility.

I have just read a recent study of the European Union “Trends in connectivity technologies and their socioeconomic impacts”. The study explores especially the question “What does the future of a connected Information Society look like and how should we prepare our overall ICT strategy and related policies to become the globally leading knowledge society?”.

In particular I found the trends or actually trend clusters that are identified in this study interesting:

Development of a Common communications infrastructure
Evolution towards Computing as an ubiquitous utility
The convergence of humans and computers
The emergence of the Intelligent Web

If you are interested to read more, please find a press release with a link to download the complete study.

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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.

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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

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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?

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World Bank names Hungary as CEE’s least welcoming place to do business

Published on October 29, 2009 in Austria, Czech Republic, Facts, figures & trends, Hungary and Slovakia. 5 Comments Tags: business environment, central europe, oecd, startups.

How odd that I came across this story on China’s People Daily Online, the erstwhile propaganda organ of the Chinese Communist Party.

According to the World Bank, Hungary’s neighbors now provide a more competitive business environment, while the Slovaks lead the region in providing a cozy home to global capitalism:

Hungary is the second most expensive place in terms of gross national product percent capitation to start up a new company in the region after Poland. Almost every country in the Central Europe Estate region beats Hungary, according to the World Bank survey. Slovakia is well ahead in 36th place due to its business-friendly reputation and flat tax.

But wait, there’s more bad news. (Are the Chinese actually mocking Hungary?)

Continue reading ‘World Bank names Hungary as CEE’s least welcoming place to do business’

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Small business is key to recovery in CEE

Published on October 26, 2009 in Current events and Facts, figures & trends. 0 Comments Tags: cee, central europe, eastern europe, economic crisis, economic recovery, foreign direct investment, western europe.

According to Reuters, SMEs can play a big part in Central Europe’s economic recovery:

Imploding demand and tighter credit have held back eastern Europe’s small and medium firms in the economic crisis, and how they cope could significantly determine which countries in the region recover quicker.

Small businesses provide 60-70% of all jobs across Central Europe, and pay at least half the taxes. That makes SMEs critical to the region’s economic recovery. (Other important factors are governments’ fiscal discipline, demand from Western Europe and the pace of foreign direct investment.)

A major issue for SMEs is limited access to credit. Lending rates in Central Europe have traditionally been less than in Western Europe. With the financial crisis, small business credit across the region has virtually frozen.

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Archive for the 'Facts, figures & trends' Category

Notes from Boston: the state of US venture capital

ICT Centrope: Conference on the “Digital Heart” of Europe

Case study: What can we learn from Europe’s most successful cluster?

New EC study underlines the importance of pursuing technological openness for the future Ubiquitous Information Society

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

ICT for smarter use of energy

Language barriers in Centrope?

World Bank names Hungary as CEE’s least welcoming place to do business

Small business is key to recovery in CEE

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