Tag Archive for 'niche markets'

Godzi is a refreshing idea but will people use it?

Published
by
Steven Carlson
  on  June 24, 2008
  in  Business innovation, Case studies and Hungary
. 0 Comments

I recently had a drink with two Hungarian entrepreneurs who are working on an interesting mashup. They’ve created a front end for Google that closely resembles the functionality of Startlap.hu (for my Hungarian-impaired readers, this translates as “start page”.)

Their creation, Godzi.hu (no idea what that means) is now in public beta. The functionality is, indeed, impressive. But how do the founders take this great idea and make it into a business?

Let’s start by talking about what Godzi does.

Continue reading ‘Godzi is a refreshing idea but will people use it?’

A CRAFT Project for Competitive and sustainable growth

Published
by
Julie Koeltz
  on  October 4, 2005
  in  Case studies
. 0 Comments

ROVIMA SA, a French SME specialised in paint manufacture was involved, along with 7 other partners from 6 European countries overall, in a FP5 Craft Project aiming at developing a new type of paint made of enzymes based on antifouling agents. This material is used in marine coatings for ships and other offshore constructions and gives ships and offshore constructions an improved aero-dynamism while being less toxic for the environment.

This project was carried out in the framework of the specific research and technological development “Competitive and Sustainable Growth”.

This project, initiated by the industry, can be considered as very successful as the underlying concept was to gather - ex-ante ? innovative ideas coming from several European SMEs. In other words, this project was based on clustering in a view to build European partnerships.

Thanks to a strong networking effort, bringing together SMEs which worked in their specific area but on similar projects targeting niche markets application processes this project was made possible.

Concerning in particular ROVIMA’s involvement, the company has developed over the years important research activities in order to elaborate innovative products and new applications. It not only takes part in European projects but also collaborates with French universities and research laboratories of big French companies.

Countries involved in the Project: Denmark (Co-ordinator), France, Portugal, UK, Greece, Netherlands.
For more information: Cordis