nowEurope

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.

Zuzana Lettner | lettner (at) vite (dot) at

Zuzana has been working mainly on transnational projects within the Vienna Business Agency (VBA). Currently, she is the coordinator of the project Centrope ICT Technology Transfer Project, within the Vienna IT Enterprises – IT network initiated by the VBA. The project concentrates on technology transfer and building up an ICT network within the Centrope region.

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.

Guenther Krumpak | g (dot) krumpak (at) itbeurope (dot) org

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

Michael Novak | m (dot) novak (at) ceconsult (dot) at

Michael Novak, born 1947 in Vienna, is a general contributor of ICT. After studies of Informatics he entered into ICT Business, beginning as a developer , organisator and IT-manager, before he found his profession in different facet’s of ICT business in Central and Eastern Europe until today.

Major steps had been the development of IT business for major and global IT & Services player like Computer Associates, Candle, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

In 2004 he founded his own company, with the focus of consulting and coaching in emerging markets. Major projects had been developing of Partner Channel Structure and business development in CEE-countries. Together with Günther Krumpak and ITBeurope he enlarged the operations and founded in 2008 CEconsult Gmbh, a small but very focused ICT-service and consulting company.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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) needlerosenberg (dot) com

Greg Kirsch is a shareholder in Needle & Rosenberg, P.C., a major intellectual property law firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. Greg heads the firm’s software, electronics and communications technology patent practice, and serves as patent counsel to numerous technology companies, ranging from small start-ups to large multinational technology companies, as well as a number of universities. He is a frequent speaker at conferences in the United States and Europe, on the subject of patent protection for software and business method inventions, and serves as an adjunct professor of patent law at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. He is also a contributing author of a book on Internet law published by Random House.Greg serves on the Advisory Board of AfterBot, Inc, a company he helped found that is developing digital receipt technology solutions for the retail and manufacturing industries. In addition to his law degree, Greg holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering.