nowEurope seeks to connect technology innovators in Central Europe. We welcome reader emails. If you are interested in contributing to nowEurope please contact Steve Carlson at the address below.
Steven Carlson | steve (at) noweurope (dot) com
At Critical Mass Media, Steven Carlson helps businesses create high-impact and cost effective weblog marketing channels to their customers, partners and the media.
Mr Carlson has 10+ years of career experience as an online marketer, including executive positions in the fields of web analytics, VoIP, ISP and social networking. While based in Budapest, Hungary, most of his career experience has been with companies doing business in North America and Europe.
Mr Carlson has taken part in starting, building and growing three businesses: a newspaper, an Internet service provider and a social networking company. With the Central European University, he created the Entrepreneurs Forum to help aspiring business leaders from around the region learn, network and live their dreams.
As an independent consultant and blogger for the European Commission, Mr Carlson developed nowEurope.com as a networking and communications platform for Central European technology innovators and entrepreneurs. He was also commissioned by Alinea Partners to create and moderate a weblog for Microsoft on the topic of telecoms convergence in Central Europe and the CIS.
Vlastimil Vesely | vesely (at) park (dot) cz
MBA degree graduate from Nottingham Business School. Prior to co-founding and being the content director of the Czech node of the First Tuesday global business network he worked as an independent consultant in the field of IT and marketing strategies. Vlastimil have been managing several European projects under Framework Programmes focused on building communities, supporting technology entrepreneurship and research exploitation. He is an MBA course lecturer and invited expert for evaluating European ICT project proposals.
Guenther Krumpak | g (dot) krumpak (at) ceconsult (dot) at
Born in Vienna in 1957, studied English and French linguistics and literature but worked mostly in private business. Milestones: editor in chief for management and ICT magazines with German WEKA publishing group, consultant to CompuServe and Salzburg Research, business relations manager with the Austrian Computer Society, founder of ITBeurope, General Secretary with Austria’s Software Industry Association, board member of Content Industries, shareholder of CEconsult GmbH, Vienna, Austria. Frequently speaking and publishing on ICT business in Central Europe
Robert Nemeth | nemeth (at) pbn (dot) hu
Robert Nemeth graduated M.Eng in Information Technology, then pursued postgraduates studies in finance and accountancy.
From 1996 he is working for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of County Vas, where as the Head of the Finance and Accounting Office he was responsible for the financial management of several national and EU funded projects. He also gained experiences in the development and implementation of IT business solutions.
Currently he is contributing within the Pannon Business Network to the implementation of the “Centrope ICT Technology Transfer Project”.
Christoph Henrichs | henrichs (at) vite (dot) at
Working for the Vienna Business Agency / VBA Christoph Henrichs is Project Manager for VBA’s ICT-Cluster “Vienna IT Enterprises (VITE)” and coordinator of the EU FP7-project “Centrope ICT Technology Transfer(CITT)” since December 1st. VITE is a network for IT companies, research, development and educational institutions. The CITT project concentrates on technology transfer and building up an ICT network within the Centrope region. Christoph’s focus lies clearly on the establishment of clusters and networks and the knowledge and technolgy transfer within clusters and on the establishment of proper structures and instruments to support cooperations of the cluster members. Before joining the VBA he has worked for private companies developing cluster platforms and he also gained experience in managing programs and call for tenders for the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Education (for the company Milestone) and within the closure managemenet of the EFRE programs Interact and Interreg IIIA (for the Austrian Federal Chancellery on behalf of the company Metis).
Bernhard Schmid | schmid (at) vite (dot) at
Bernhard Schmid has been working for the Vienna Business Agency since 1991. After several years in the real estate department he has became project manager of the initiative Vienna IT Enterprises (www.vite.at) .Under his leadership the Viennese IT network has grown to almost 130 members and gained substantial importance. Mr. Schmid is an expert in dealing with EU funding and consulting SMEs in the IT sector. He hosted several conferences and matchmaking events at home and abroad. Among others he initiated “the Centrope Experts Pool” and the “Call and Tender base” within the scope of VITE. He attended various trainings and seminars in the field of IT and has a profound understanding of the Austrian ICT Market.
Dr. Bernd Kopacek | bernd (dot) kopacek (at) isl-group (dot) at
Bernd heads the Austrian Society for Systems Engineering and Automation – one of the leading research organisations in electronics and the environment – in Vienna as Managing Director since 1997. Besides that he runs his own small group of companies in Austria and Romania specialising on electronics recycling as well as re-use of IT equipment and mobile phones since 1999. At the moment he is in the process of expanding this group into Southeast Europe. Since 2007 he has been appointed as Business Development Consultant by the International Finance Corporation (part of the Worldbank group) to set up an efficient WEEE solution for Southeast Europe as well as Project Technical Advisor by the European Commission.
Bernd graduated in Mechanical Engineering at Vienna University of Technology in 1993, received his Master of Science degree in Engineering Management from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, USA in 1996 and finally his PhD from Vienna University of Technology in 1999.
Andreas Rainer | office (at) vite (dot) at
Andreas graduated in Communications and Journalism at the University of Vienna in 2006. He worked a year at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and spent a total of three semesters teaching and studying at Bard College and the University of Connecticut in the United States. He returned to his hometown, Vienna, in 2009 and is now working for the IT network “Vienna IT Enterprises (VITE)”. At VITE, Andreas supports the Marketing & PR activities of the network by creating and editing texts for brochures, newspaper articles or the VITE homepage. Andreas gained insight in the Austrian IT market during his time working for a private company in Vienna which carried out EU- subsidized projects in the IT field.
Balázs Barta | barta (at) pbn (dot) hu
Balázs Barta graduated from the Corvinus University of Budapest as an economist, specialised in marketing and entrepreneurship. He pursued postgraduate studies at the Universities of Insead (France) and Wharton (USA). He had worked with British American Tobacco Budapest in the field of marketing and then with Borsodi Sörgyár / Interbrew in the field of sales and marketing for a total of eight years. His last responsibility was his appointment as the Trade Marketing Director of the company. He had worked as an expert of the Regional Development Agency of the Western Transdanubia from November 2004. Since April 2006 he is the director of Pannon Business Network, in charge of organisational management and contact with the economic stakeholders of the Western Transdanubian region, with special regard to cluster organisations.
Ján Chudík | jan (dot) chudik (at) mofir (dot) sk
Jan Chudik is an owner of the consulting company, MOFIR, focusing on two aspects of project management – one is the practical management of big IT projects and the second is delivering training in various managerial disciplines. Jan lectures on project management and other management related subjects at the City University of Seattle in the branch located in Bratislava, Slovakia. He is involved in several IT related initiatives and projects both – national and international – financed by the EU.
Jan could be called an IT veteran, since he has been in this business for 40 years. His carrier started in the scientific and research area, where he spent 17 years dealing with computer electronics and architecture of parallel computers. For several years he was a deputy director of the Institute of Technical Cybernetics and later Head of the international laboratory for artificial intelligence. He spent almost 10 years in the UN agency – International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna dealing with system analysis and project management. During the rest of his carrier he occupied various top managerial positions in branches of US IT corporations Digital, Compaq, I-net. He was born in Slovakia, his educational background is computer science. He passed his university an post graduated studies in Bratislava, Slovakia, Moscow, USSR and Swansea, GB.
Ladislav Kováč | kovac (at) bicba (dot) sk
Ladislav Kováč, born in 1981 in Slovakia, graduated from the Technical University in Kosice, as engineer of cybernetics at the Faculty of electrotechnics and informatics. He started work as a project manager at BIC Group in 2004. He was involved in projects in the 6th Framework Programme, Interreg III A and also projects, co-financed within Structural funds. He was focused especially on SMEs of EU 15 and Access Candidate countries in projects like Envitex, Econet Platform, which are focused on business cooperation of SMEs and regional self administering bodies. He was also involved in implementing of Innovation Relay Center project within 6. Framework Programme and was co-working on a pre-feasibility study of the technology incubator at the Technical University in Kosice. In recent years, Ladislav had dealt mainly with projects involving the regional innovation strategies of self-governing regions and ICT.
Petr Marčišák | marcisak (at) park (dot) cz
In 2003 and 2004 he has been certified in CCNA1 and CCNA 2 by Cisco Networking Academy. He worked as an IT Essentials I: PC Hardware and Software courses lecturer. In 2007 he finished studies at Finnish Laurea University of Applied Science in Helsinki. Within the team he is responsible for the CITT project focused on networking IT clusters among the regions of the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary and for the Internet services development. Currently he is studying Managerial Informatics at the Faculty of Business and Management of the Brno University of Technology.
Peter Linhardt | peter (dot) linhardt (at) finesoft (dot) sk
Peter Linhardt graduated from the Technical University Kosice as an mechanical engineer for the technology, but during his later stady he turned definitely to the IT field. He pursued degree in TU Kosice 1977 , Slovakia. He had worked in research and development institute for electrical machines in deifferent reseach and innovation position and later in Novitech Kosice a.s. as R&D. Since 1995 he runs the FineSoft s.r.o. active in the area of Unified messging and ASP services. Currently working for NESS SK a.s. in the position of senior consultant for eHealth care.
He is one of the bodies, who founded cluster BITERAP in Slovakia 2004 targetted to introduce the utulisation of leading edge SW solution to provide IT support for local and public government is Slovakia.
Štefan Kubinec | stefan.kubinec (at) biterap (dot) sk
Stefan Kubinec graduated from Faculty of Science of Safarik University in Kosice. He has more than twenty years of experience in the field of IT system design, implementation and management. He worked in the Institution for Automated Design and then as a managing director of private ICT company.
Recently he had worked for several local development projects and delivering humanitarian, social and housing programs in the Eastern Slovakia in the position of the project and financial manager. He has international projects experience from Algeria, India and Germany.
Currently he is working as a consultant and project manager within the Biterap cluster participating in the implementation of the CITT Project.
Jiří Peterka | jiri (at) peterka (dot) cz
Jiří is a freelance consultant and journalist with an academic background. From 1983 he has been a staff member at Charles University, Prague, teaching computer architecture, programming, and currently computer networks and communications. Jiří also likes to write articles for newspapers and magazines about computers and telecommunications, the Internet, information society and related topics. Since 1996, he does this as a freelance journalist, and runs an archive of all the articles, lectures and tutorials he ever authored.
Miklos Barta | bartamiklos (at) hotmail (dot) com
Miklos Barta graduated as a medical doctor in 1998 at Semmelweis University Budapest. He worked at the National Medical Centre Hungary for years and for the International Medical Centre in Budapest. He specialized in clinical radiology and was involved in planning the first digital radiology department in Hungary. He was part of the team writing the Hungarian national standards for digital radiology. Miklos moved to the UK and worked there as a consultant radiologist for nearly 4 years. He studied in Nottingham and in Belfast and subspecialized in Breast Imaging. He was invited as an advisor in the process of the digital transformation of an NHS Trust as part of the Northern Ireland Picture Archiving and Communication System. He recently moved back to Hungary where he works in national and European projects mainly in health care and ICT related R&D.
Laszlo Biro | lbiro (at) infomatix (dot) hu
Laszlo Biro began work at InfomatiX Ltd in the beginning of April, 2009, as a project manager on the MobiAccess team. Previous to that he worked at Citigroup and Tesco, where he lead various software and hardware development projects.
Currently Laszlo leads the larger projects at InfomatiX. These projects are the most complicated at the company and usually require longer development time. Besides leading mobile application development projects, occasionally Laszlo’s expertise is required for very different fields from IT project management as well. You can for example take a quick look at this promotional video created by Laszlo at InfomatiX to promote one of the company’s off-the-shelf products.
Jeffrey Baumgartner | jeffreyb (at) jpb (dot) com
Jeffrey Baumgartner knows a thing or two about organizational innovation. His company, jpb.com, has developed and markets Jenni, the leading international idea management software service. Jenni is helping companies in Europe, the USA, Australia, South Africa and Brazil capture, evaluate and implement innovative ideas that keep them one step ahead of the competition. Jeffrey also writes Report 103, a twice monthly eJournal on business innovation; co-manages the Brussels Imagination Club; and runs the international Imagination Club forum. He is based in Erps-Kwerps, Belgium.
Vit Skala | vit (dot) skala (at) ptl (dot) cz
Vit Skala is a project consultant and facilitator with eight years of experience in EU projects. As of April 2008, he leads a team of project specialists at a Czech consultancy company VALUE ADDED, a.s. Vit has taken part in preparing and executing dozens of successful projects funded mostly by Structural Funds, including Norway Funds and Interreg. He also worked as a facilitator of a wood industry cluster (2006 – 2007). Vit has experience with building his own Internet company, as well (launched in 2000, partly sold in October 2008). He was born in Prague, and graduated at Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry in Brno in 1994. He now studies Sociology and Public Policy at Charles University in Prague. He specializes in using ICT, networking, and clusters in the everyday life of traditional businesses and local people in rural areas.
Since 1998, Vit lives with his wife and two children at old farm in a village with 700 inhabitants in the central part of the Czech Republic. He travels frequently in the Czech Republic and other Europeans countries.
Toby Elwin |Toby(at) Elwin (dot) com
Toby Elwin <@TobyElwin> is the founder of a business development company based in Boston, MA. Toby lived in Hungary in 1999-2002 where he founded the Arctic Group, an advisory firm specializing in foreign direct investment in and around Central/Eastern Europe. Toby has worked internationally for more than a decade across Europe and Asia, where he worked in as a production manager in China.
Toby has an MBA from the Central European University/Case Western Reserve
business school. He has worked with Deloitte Consulting and Booz Allen
Hamilton in strategy and human capital with organizations across a variety
of industries and includes: Chevron, Caterpillar, Hoffmann-La Roche, and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Toby leverages 2 decades experience
with marketing, systems theory, project management, and
organization development to deliver sustainable performance results.
Val Jelinic | valj (at) mng-europe (dot) com
Val Jelinic has had a long and experienced career in telecommunications within a diversity of technologies. A career spanning over 21 years, including 10 years in Secure Telecoms with the RAAF, Mr Jelinic has spent over a decade in the Sth. American, Asian & European regions immersed in the Telecoms & ICT markets, progressing with its changes and developments. Assisting SME’s to navigate such challenges and help them to establish and build proven channel partner relationships for their products and services is a key focus for MNG Europe.
As Partner & Business Development Manager at MNG Europe SA, Val puts his broad knowledge into practice by providing high-tech SME’s and Start-Ups involved in ICT the sound business development guidance and support they need to achieve their goals. A self-driven entrepreneur, his dedication has earned him a proven reputation amongst his peers as a consummate professional. The love of travel and photography ensures that Val makes good use of his spare time in Fribourg, Switzerland.
Ivo Spigel | ivo (dot) spigel (at) perpetuum (dot) hr
Ivo Spigel was born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1962. and is co-founder and Board Member of Perpetuum Mobile, an IT & Internet technology company based in Zagreb. The core business of Perpetuum Mobile today is IT & Internet solutions, including IT infrastructure, business solutions, portals and systems integration. The company develops and markets its own family of content management software called iSite.
Ivo graduated from the General Management Program of the IEDC business school in Bled, Slovenia in 2002. Aside from his day job at Perpetuum, Ivo is an active member of the Croatian Employer’s Association ICT branch, and writes a regular monthly column in the leading Croatian magazine for IT professionals, „Mreza“. His favourite winter destination are the Alps and in the summer he can be found on the beautiful Dalmatian town of Jelsa on the island Hvar.
Richard Voda | rvoda (at) antbase (dot) sk
Richard holds an MBA degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology. In his professional career he spent several years in the telco and finance industries, both in the US and Europe. At the moment he is an independent consultant providing business development, management consulting, equity fundraising services to growth oriented enterprises in CEE.
Greg Kirsch | gkirsch (at) sgrlaw (dot) com
Greg Kirsch is a partner in Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP, a major full-service U.S. law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia with 180 lawyers in Atlanta, New York City, Washington, DC, Jacksonville, Florida and Frankfurt, Germany. Greg serves as patent and IP counsel to numerous clients worldwide, ranging from small start-up companies, to large multinational technology companies and universities. He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world on patent law topics, and is a contributing author on patent law to two books.
In addition to his full-time legal practice, Greg has served as an adjunct professor of patent and IP law at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta since 1997 and Washington University School of Law in St. Louis since 2011. In addition to his law degree, Greg has a B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Lucia Davidova | davidova (at) bicba (dot) sk
Ms. Lucia Davidova has experience with EU funded projects focused on SMEs, innovation, technology transfer, foresight. She participated in technical assistance for the Ministry of Economy as a junior researcher in the field of innovation support tools for SMEs and in preparation of Innovation Strategy for 2008-2010 for Slovakia. Experienced in managing Framework Programme projects, transregional cooperation projects (Interreg IV C, South-East Europe, Central Europe), CIP, pre-accession funds. Project manager for Innovation Relay Center Slovakia (2006-2008) and Enterprise Europe Network (from 2008) as member of the Slovak consortium. Actively participated and was trained in foresight methods and implemented FP6 project FutureFood6 focused on developing long term strategy for food industry in CEE. Involved in Structural Funds projects. Ms. Davidova graduated from the University of Economics in Bratislava in 2004.
Renata Anna Jaksa | rajaksa (at) icegec (dot) hu
Renata Anna Jaksa graduated from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration (BUESPA) in 2001. Since 2003, she has been working with ICEG European Center in many ICT and Information Society research projects, mainly focusing on ICT R&D, broadband developments and eServices (eGovernment, eHealth, eLearning, eBusiness). Clients of the research projects include various DGs of the European Commission as well as other international organisations and domestic Hungarian actors. In addition to her research activity, she often coordinates research projects with up to 10-12 institutional partners. She is also the organiser of the Information Economy and Society Partnership, which consists of ICT – IS oriented research institutes based in the New Member States and the Southeast European region.
Zuzana Lettner | lettner (at) vite (dot) at
Zuzana has been working mainly on transnational projects within the Vienna Business Agency (VBA). Through November 11, 2008, Zuzana served as coordinator of the project Centrope ICT Technology Transfer Project, within the Vienna IT Enterprises – IT network initiated by the VBA. In recent years, Zuzana was involved in the areas of business support, promotion of business location, international business cooperation and was managing several cross-border projects in Central Europe and beyond. Zuzana previously worked in Bratislava, Slovakia, within an international tax and business consultancy company, Arthur Andersen, as an experienced advisor managing portfolios of international clients. She graduated at the Economics University in Bratislava and pursued her studies also at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Zuzana is currently on maternity leave.
Constantin Schöhl von Norman | cschoehlvn (at) alaris (dot) at
Constantin Schöhl von Norman works as a Program/Partner Manager for Vienna based Alaris AG. His professional experience includes working for Arthur Andersen (Frankfurt), Asia America Initiative (Washington D.C.), the German Embassy in Washington as well as work as an assistant professor in Erbil (Iraq) and The Center for Security Policy (Washington D.C). He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and holds a law degree from the University of Heidelberg as well as a German Federal bar exam and an additional master degree from the United Nations mandated University for Peace.
Jasmina Medic | j (dot) medic (at) alaris (dot) at
Recently returning from parental leave, Jasmina Medic re-entered the position of a Project Manager with ALARIS AG, an Austrian based company which – inter alia – implements transnational projects. Licensed to educate apprentices she is drawing on her 10+ years of project management experience, including technological and trans-border projects but also sales-management, marketing and organisation. Her educational background is commercial.
