There’s no question that the US are in trouble. 50% of the US mortgage banks do not run under Federal control – no further comment on this.
The car industry is one of the industries that obviously have been hit hardest after the banks. Europe and the rest of the world can feel it and the situation will worsen. With the car industry a range of drive by wire suppliers and other related businesses will suffer.
The ICT industry in general will suffer, this time, unlike after the millennium, it is those companies that so far have been immune to new economy stuff. Austria’s ICT industry has quite a share in industrial ICT on an international level.
But, and that’s my point, if we all scream crisis, we will of course have one. Continue reading ‘A Crisis is a Crisis is a Crisis – is it?’
The phenomenon of technology transfer has become increasingly important for the economic and social development in the European regions. The critical issue is connecting those who produce knowledge and those who might be in the need of it. What is required is to build a meeting place between enterprises and universities, as well as other public R&D centers.
When it comes to catalyzing innovation within the sphere of SME (small and medium enterprises), the aspect of regionality appears to be the most essential. These small companies cannot afford to launch their own exclusive research, but on the other hand they can launch a productive and fruitful cooperation with local universities and R&D centers.
Based on the experiences from the ten-years existence of the knowledge transfer center in the Graz region of Austria, we can divide the companies into three segments based on their aptitude to join and profit from the regional knowledge centers.
Continue reading ‘Technology transfer: which companies are most suitable?’
Central Europe is full of long-haired academics who love to tinker in their university laboratories and workshops. Most of these guys wouldn’t know a business opportunity if it hit them on the head. Technology transfer is a public sector buzzword for funding projects to extract those ideas from the laboratory and develop real world businesses. The catch is that we don’t see too many examples yet.
The last dozen nowEurope posts have contributed to my understanding of Central Europe’s innovation dilemma, but I am not yet persuaded that technology transfer is not just wishful thinking. I found it useful to summarize where we stand in order to highlight what we still need to know.
Continue reading ‘CEE innovation: what we know so far’
We are still in the early phase of our publishing effort here at nowEurope connected with the Centrope ICT transfer project and keep identifying the main issues and common interests in our region of the Central Europe.
Technology transfer is a term widely used but it is often understood in quite different ways. Some people even take it just as another buzzword and so let’s take a closer look what it represents for us. For you. What are the topics or concrete questions interesting you and us the most?
Continue reading ‘What technology transfer questions interest you most?’
This post is somehow a free analysis of my observations, and you, dear readers and bloggers, can verify together with me if my observations and conclusions apply.
Recently I commented IBM CEE’s move from Vienna to Prague. I said that this move has no reasonable background, as the Czech Republic is no low-cost low-wage country anymore and if IBM wants growth, why not go to Russia right away.
At the same time it was announced that Siemens rail vehicles is closing down in Prague. No tit-for-tat feelings. Everybody who has his/her eyes open can see that classical production moves east.
Yesterday I attended an event where one of Austria’s top ICT researchers, Bruno Buchberger (one of the top three worldwide in Symbolic Computation) presented his new master studies program mainly targeted to foreigners as in Austria they do not have enough top qualified computer science students.
Continue reading ‘Are we trapped in a vicious loop?’
One of the foremost tasks of the CITT project is to assess the ICT related research and technology landscape of the Centrope region. In order to achieve this aim we would like to get comprehensive information about the activities of the companies, universities and research institutions involved in R&D in the area of ICT.
Detailed information help us to approach the narrow segments of companies and research organizations that match for a certain research issue.
Thus, we would greatly appreciate your support in compiling data about your activities. Please participate in the survey and fill in the online questionnaire:
Survey for institutions
Survey for companies
For further information regarding the survey please visit the CITT webportal.
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?
Continue reading ‘IBM CEE: Na shledanou to Vienna’
I’d like to about hear your experiences with technology transfer. I’m addressing this request to the nowEurope contributors circle, many of whom I have only recently met. My experience has mainly been with small, entrepreneurial startups in Internet media.
However, I do recall that some fifteen years ago when I used a text interface to navigate the Internet through the Siemens Data-P network I discovered a Hungarian professor who had a working copy of Mosiac, the first primitive web browser. His student later told me the professor had refused to post a copy of Mosiac on the open university for others to use.
Continue reading ‘Confessions of a tech transfer newbie’
I am pleased to be able to contribute for the first time to a new nowEurope issue that so far has been quite underestimated in some European countries: Technology transfer, in particular in ICT.
The core business of CITT is to devise a strategy to establish and get running a viable cooperation between the ICT industry and research. Although a lot has been done recently on national and EU levels, Europe still gives away too much technology and know how to competing markets.
Continue reading ‘CITT: Add “Technology Transfer” to Europe’s vocabulary!’
Success of Skype, a peer-to-peer telephony network, which was sold recently to eBay for roughtly 3,2 billion USD, marks clearly the potential of Estonian developers in creating world class products. In 2002, starting with mere 10 employees, the company has meanwhile grown to more than 100 employees internationally, three thirds of them located in Estonia. Pradoxically, there are few people who know that almost entire technical development of the company is lead from Tallinn.
For a small country, with limited market size and resources, participation in collaborative development projects is one feasible way of gaining critical mass. This has been true for Skype as well ? the vision comes from Scandinavia, sales are done from London, and technology development in Estonia. For these purposes, interest towards partnering on EU scales is remarkably high amongst our companies. EU funded programmes consitute quite a good possiblity for entering international networks, serving as a source for additional funding as well as a source for complementing partners and future customers.
Archimedes Foundation, an organisation nominated as official National Contant Point for Framework Programme 6 and a number of other EU programmes such as eTen, eContent+, EUREKA, COST etc, serves to assist local companies and RTD centres in networking with foreign partners. Apart of that, consultations on proposal preparation are provided and international partner searches pursued. Archimedes Foundation acts also as an Innovation Relay Centre, supporting SMEs with technology transfer. More information on the organisation can be found at www.irc.ee.
Thus, once partners from Estonia are needed, you are most welcome to contact our people from Archimedes Foundation, who will kindly help you in identifying proper and credible partner for your project. In case you are interested in Estonia in general or specifically in ICT sector developments, more information can be found at www.esis.ee.
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