Tag Archive for 'eastern europe'

Hoping to gatecrash TEDx Danubia this Wednesday

Published on January 25, 2010 in Business innovation, Current events and Hungary. 1 Comment Tags: Al Gore, ariadne capital, Bill Gates, Bucharest, budapest, Cluj, eastern europe, Estonia, Gordon Brown, Romania, Sarajevo, Sofia, spin-off, technology, TED, TEDx, vienna, Warsaw, zagreb.

I confess that TEDx Danubia completely slipped in under my radar. Having said that, I was looking forward to attending TEDx Budapest - which was previously announced, but yet to be scheduled. Confusing? Yes. The events appear to be competitors, but I don’t know the background.

TEDx is a spin-off of the popular TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) event series, organized around the mantra ‘ideas worth spreading.’ Speakers are strictly limited to 18 minutes. TED videos featuring prominent figures including Bill Gates, Al Gore and Gordon Brown are widely linked and commented, helping to spread the TED meme. The TEDx format offers independent event / community organizers a license to hold one event at a time, following the event format guidelines.

Upcoming TEDx events in Central / Eastern Europe include Vienna, Sarajevo, Sofia, Zagreb, Tartu (Estonia), Warsaw, Bucharest and Cluj (Romania). Vlastimil, does this give you any ideas?

TEDx Danubia takes place this coming Wednesday just down the street from my apartment in downtown Budapest. I’ve made a last minute application, so hopefully I can still get a spot. Attendance is limited to 200, and judging by its Facebook page, the event will be well attended. Wish me luck, and if I make it in I’ll post my impressions in a follow up post.

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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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ICT Brokerage Brno: ICT better off than other industries

Published on May 6, 2009 in Current events and Facts, figures & trends. 2 Comments Tags: bratislava, brno, Brussels, business europe, CEconsult, cee businesses, central europe, Centrope, CITT, cooperative research projects, czech market, Czech Republic, eastern europe, eastern european, eastern european countries, ec projects, EU funding programme, Europe, european commission, european commission officials, european union, fav, global competitiveness, global markets, Guenther Krumpak, Hungary, IBM, ICT, ITBeurope, matchmaking, multinationals, networking events, public investment, R&D spending, research and development, research budget, single currency, Slovakia, software companies, technology transfer projects.

In the framework of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency Masaryk University in Brno, CITT partner First Innovation Park and others organised an EU project information and brokerage event on April 30, 2009, where I had the honour and pleasure to speak. The hall was full, people interested and attentive. Allow me therefore this time to comment myself.

Originally I planned to talk about chances and risks in R&D and EU activities in Central Europe, but facing the present economic situation I thought I should rather offer general information on what is happening in the ICT markets in the region. Continue reading ‘ICT Brokerage Brno: ICT better off than other industries’

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Against the windmills In Europe’s minds

Published on March 31, 2009 in Business innovation. 1 Comment Tags: american attitude, eastern europe, european economies, european innovation, european union, global competitiveness, global markets, Innovation, marketing, microsoft, motivation, publicity.

Recently Ivo Spigel (Welcome!) opened one of his posts stating “We’re all used to the fact that most trends, paradigm shifts and business model disruptions originate in the US, and then, sometimes quickly and sometimes more slowly, make their way across the Atlantic, first to Western and then gradually to Central and Eastern Europe.”

This made me think. Not that I wasn’t aware of it, on the contrary. All those EU-sceptics should have a look at a world map – the US, China, Russia dominate it, and then there’s Europe with its pretty little gardens, well fenced in, enormously self confident when it comes to questions about “sovereignty” and stuff. When it comes to global questions, though, there’s a lot of hot air, but rarely solutions.

Anyway, that’s not my topic. My topic is Ivo’s introduction: “We’re all used to the fact…”. Although the paradigms have changed slightly (GSM came from Europe, etc), our minds are programmed to accept and adopt anything that’s labelled as “glamorous” from across the Atlantic.

Continue reading ‘Against the windmills In Europe’s minds’

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nowEurope has doubled its traffic, built an engaged audience

Published on January 26, 2009 in Case studies and Facts, figures & trends. 2 Comments Tags: eastern europe, eastern european, european commission, geographical regions, highest quality, interactive channel, quality content, traffic analysis.

We’ve just reported to the European Commission about nowEurope’s progress building its traffic and audience. I’d like to offer a few figures, based on data collected with Google Analytics through the period of April through December, 2008.

In terms of unique visitors to the website, nowEurope has doubled its audience in the last months. Eastern Europe dominates the traffic and the Centrope region is our most active, engaged audience. As could be expected, our highest quality content attracts the greatest share of nowEurope traffic.

Continue reading ‘nowEurope has doubled its traffic, built an engaged audience’

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