Vienna’s position as CEE’s ICT capital has suffered quite a blow by IBM’s announcement to move its CEE headquarters to Prague. Beware: I love Prague, I live there, but the decision’s wording “to move growth market activities to growth markets” sounds rather shallow if applied to the Czech Republic. Sure the country has growth potentials that the EU15 have lost long ago, but then why not move IBM CEE to Ukraine or Russia right away?
Tag Archive for 'eastern european countries'
Let me continue to post some remarks to the previous notes on the new initiative the “Centrope ICT technology transfer” which broadens the variety of activities taking place in the so called “Centrope region”. The region accounts for about six million inhabitants.
Why and how did it all start? The CITT project was initiated by the Vienna IT Enterprises Platform of the Vienna Business Agency more than a year ago. VITE is the network for IT companies, research-, development- and educational institutions which have their seat in Vienna. The main goals of VITE is raising awareness for the value of cooperation and implementing existing skills and ideas to initiatives.
I’m pleased to announce that we’re now preparing to introduce a new round of contributors to nowEurope, the members of the CITT consortium. CITT is an EU project co-funded under the 7th Framework. I’ll let our CITT project leader, Zuzana Lettner, tell you more about CITT. My purpose with this post is to tell you a little about where we’ve been and where we’re going.
I’ve always been fascinated with how new technologies get turned into businesses. When I started nowEurope, back in 1995, I was interested in meeting people in Europe who wanted to start businesses on the Internet. We talked about business models, investments and exciting new startups. Several of my readers went on to meet each other, face to face, and a few of them even launched businesses together. This current iteration of nowEurope isn’t so different. However, the circumstances have changed.
EurActive reports that the think tank ‘Lisbon Council for Economic Competitiveness and Social Renewal’ has released a study warning that continued growth in the new EU states of Central Europe should not be taken for granted.
“While central and eastern European countries have been “the engine of dynamism, mobility and flexibility” that was lacking the EU-15, the human capital issue in these new member states could have a negative effect on the EU economy as a whole if nothing is done to bridge the gap, warns the authors.”
Continue reading ‘Think tank: don’t take CEE growth for granted’
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