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Next week: blogging at Mobile & NFC Payment Strategies

It’s been a while since I hit the conference circuit. I enjoy learning about new technologies and business models. I also enjoy meeting new people and expanding my network of professional contacts (especially my LinkedIn contacts). Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy of late to travel to these shows. The good news is this time the show is coming to Budapest.

Next week I will selectively sample the workshops and presentations at IIR’s Mobile & NFC Payment Strategies conference. The conference brochure promises to ‘cut through the hype’ with a comprehensive overview of how the mobile payment industry is evolving, as well as how to create successful m-payment strategies. My special thank you to Tony Poulus of Telecom TV, who invited me to attend the show.

Are we trapped in a vicious loop?

This post is somehow a free analysis of my observations, and you, dear readers and bloggers, can verify together with me if my observations and conclusions apply.

Recently I commented IBM CEE’s move from Vienna to Prague. I said that this move has no reasonable background, as the Czech Republic is no low-cost low-wage country anymore and if IBM wants growth, why not go to Russia right away.

At the same time it was announced that Siemens rail vehicles is closing down in Prague. No tit-for-tat feelings. Everybody who has his/her eyes open can see that classical production moves east.

Yesterday I attended an event where one of Austria’s top ICT researchers, Bruno Buchberger (one of the top three worldwide in Symbolic Computation) presented his new master studies program mainly targeted to foreigners as in Austria they do not have enough top qualified computer science students.

Continue reading ‘Are we trapped in a vicious loop?’

Today is moving day

Please excuse the dust while we move things around today.

Wordpress.com has just upgraded to the 2.3 version of their service and in the process the ‘tags’ and ‘categories’ features have undergone changes. The result is that this site design no longer works as originally intended.

As a result I’ve decided to move nowEurope to my own server where I can tinker and change the design until it works the way Vlastimil and I like it.

I expect these changes to be finished by noon today CET.

NETIES is ending

The 6th Framework Programme is practically over and so it is our NETIES project. In last two years we surveyed over 750 SMEs, organised 32 networking events, workshops or conferences attended by 1750 people in six countries. The consortium provided 84 individual consulting sessions and coached 31 companies in the area of finding foreign partners, improving and presenting their business plans or FP6 applications.

22 contributors from 11 countries published more than 300 posts here sharing their experience, views and comments on the topics of technology innovation, R&D funding, venture capital and Central and Eastern Europe. NowEurope attracted totally 30,000 unique visitors over the period. Thank you all.

Continue reading ‘NETIES is ending’

Hungary’s mysterious bird flu vaccine

A Hungarian company has been claiming it has developed a vaccine against bird flu, however it has not sought regulatory approval from the EU. The Hungarian government has approved sale of the drug, however, the certification documentation is not public because it contains ‘protected information’.

The Hungarian government contributed $9.8m to develop the vaccine, but according to Bloomberg.com, opposition politicians are pushing for an inquiry, and scientists at Hungary’s National Epidemiology Center stated they might have been hasty in declaring it ready for market.

What’s more, the company that developed the drug is owned by an obscure company in Cyprus and the main sales representative is a dodgy Iraqi businessman with no experience selling pharmaceuticals who was previous investigated in connection with a missing shipment of medical aid to Iraq.

A clinical trial with 146 volunteers is now underway in Budapest, according to the article.

Off to Warsaw for the Biotech Venture Academy

This coming week, Vlastimil and I will meet up at Europe Unlimited’s Biotech Venture Academies in Warsaw.

Apparently, the venture academy format involves bringing together a small circle of companies to work with a number of business coaches - including Vlastimil and me. This is a chance for me to learn about how this works before we bring this event to Hungary later in June 2005.

I’ll share my impressions of the event later this week (and encourage Vlastimil to do the same).

A new contributor on nowEurope

I am pleased to introduce Noweurope?s audience a new contributor from Belgium.

Claudie Tallineau (33) is a Senior Consultant at Pole Europe Conseil, a Belgian private consultancy company concentrating on assignments aimed at supporting socio-economic actors in the elaboration and implementation of policies or strategies, directly or indirectly, related to their growth and competitiveness through innovation, internationalisation and integration of the European dimension.

Pole Europe Conseil has a strong experience in advising SMEs and supporting them in their participation in European projects. Through a one off contribution, Claudie proposes to share with nowEurope’s audience her views on the difficulties faced by SMEs in meeting such challenges and how they can overcome the barriers of the 6th FPRD.

BioBiz 2006 in Slovakia

The biotechnology field has enormous potential in terms of creating wealth and jobs. There is particular focus on confronting the major communicable diseases linked to poverty. Fostering scientific excellence and innovation through greater European cooperation will help boosting the technology breakthroughs and economic growth to make EU one of the major international players in the field.

Research without innovation is going nowhere. Innovation only really benefits society when research hits the road in pursuit of markets. Too often, the business community fails to understand the science behind new research, while scientists have little idea how to set up and run a business. Our universities prepare specialists for academic purposes, but do not prepare for business. There is a gap in delivering of entrepreneurial skills and business experience.
Continue reading ‘BioBiz 2006 in Slovakia’

BioScience Slovakia: Introduction

Dana Ukropcova obtained a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology at the Slovak Technology University in Bratislava and took a position of a junior biochemist in an environmental laboratory of the oil refinery Slovnaft. She held several positions at Sales of chemicals and diagnostic kits from main world producers. Leaving for Ireland, she successfully coordinated the EC project ‘Science and Technology Awareness’ for the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Limerick. After working experience in a Slovak/Austrian biotechnology company and passing BioBiz 4 in Germany, she has founded BioScience Slovakia in 2004.

The company specializes in science-based technology transfer, continuously maps and monitors specifically biotechnology R&D community, co-operates closely with local universities, funds and University Technological Incubator in Bratislava. BioScience Slovakia participates in FP6 projects and provides technical assistance to prospective participants of Structural Funds. At the Austrian ‘Best of Biotech’ Competition in 2004 and at the EU project ‘BioVentureAcademy’ in Brno in 2005 participated as a coach company.
Continue reading ‘BioScience Slovakia: Introduction’

Introduction of the Slovak IST NCP

My name is Maria Buciova. I received a master’s degree in economics at Faculty of Commerce, University of Economy in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2003 I started to work at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. I work at the Rector’s office, Department of Science & Technology in the position of EU Programmes Manager.

Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU) was founded in 1937. Since its foundation it has been graduated over 75 000 Master degree full-time students, over 10,000 Master degree part-time or distance students and more than 5000 Bachelors. Today STU is the largest research based university of technology in Slovakia.

STU provides higher education mainly in technology in wide spectrum of branches, e.g. Information technologies, Electrical engineering and electronics, Machine engineering, Chemistry, Biotechnology, Food technology, Civil engineering, Architecture, Materials and process technology. STU has more than 17 600 Slovak and international students at all levels and forms of study. Students are studying at 7 faculties of the STU, out of which 6 are located in Bratislava and one faculty is in Trnava.

The mission of the university is to provide university training based on research activities. All study programs are supported by basic research. The main focus for development in research is in perspective fields, formulated by Scientific council of the university: Information society technologies, Sustainable sources and development with sub areas: energy and environment, nanotechnologies, nanosciences and new materials and production processes, Biotechnologies and biocompatibility, Life, health, food, and Security, reliability, and quality. Over 350 research and academic projects have been running last year, from which more than 100 were international. The university research is provided by more than 1000 researchers.

In May 2004 I became an IST NCP. I am responsible for information dissemination. Actually in the priority Information Society Technologies there is a new call open. It is the last call aimed at project proposals in these strategic objectives: Advanced Robotics, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) for the Ageing Society, Search Engines for audio-visual content, Accompanying actions in support of participation in Community, ICT research, International Co-operation. More information you can find here.

I participated in a Phare project of establishment of University technology incubator.

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