The European Commission, Innovation Directorate - DG Enterprise and Industry, wishes to express its gratitude to GABA, the Stanford University Mechanical Engineering and all conference participants as well as the European innovation support services for organizing this event that will help shape our common thinking and future action.
This conference had a very particular focus: Building stronger innovation bridges between Silicon Valley and Europe through the European Expatriates. The purpose was to provide ideas and guidance for those that design and deliver innovation support in Europe or on behalf of European organisations in the Valley. The policy makers - and I am counting myself as one - simply don't know enough to provide the best enabling environment to make your innovations work in Europe. But we are interested to do better.
I want to thank you already for your contributions, your ideas and advice. Personal experience and opinions on barriers for building better innovation bridges are as welcome as scientific insight and the practical framework for transatlantic venture capital investing.
I want to thank you already for your contributions, your ideas and advice. Personal experience and opinions on barriers for building better innovation bridges are as welcome as scientific insight and the practical framework for transatlantic venture capital investing.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Sven Schade
European Commission, Support to Innovation
Click here for videos and pictures from the event.
Related online articles in French:
European Commission, Support to Innovation
Click here for videos and pictures from the event.
Related online articles in French:
Innovation et transfert de technologie
Le capital risque : la silicon Valley versus l'Europe
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/63412.htm
http://www.france-amerique.com/articles/2010/05/18/conference_building_innovation_bridges_between_silicon_valley_and_europe_1.html
Posts
I wanted to extend the conversation about innovation networks that took place in yesterday's panel. I noticed that the emphasis was on networks that had a national or regional theme. I think this is a good idea, as people are often willing to help compatriots with some free advice. But I think there is also a need for something different, as I outline below.
ReplyDeleteIn almost 30 years as a high tech entrepreneur here in the Valley and in Boston (originally from Australia via Oxford) I have found that the thing that is often missing in early stage ventures is access to deep market/industry domain expertise. I believe the Valley is all about "the best in the world" and not "the best from country xx". I think we sometimes fall short of the ideal when we emphasize the national affiliation of our networks.
Some colleagues and I have taken a contrasting approach to "connecting" new ventures to this much needed domain expertise. You can see it at www.accelerationcoop.com. This is a work in progress, but it is targeted at many of the same issues discussed yesterday, but from a global, best-in-world perspective rather than from the perspective of a specific region.
I would be very interested in any thoughts/feedback about this approach.
@ Richard Caro,
ReplyDelete(sorry for thelate reply)
I learnt tremendously lot during the conference day. I see the absulte strength that comes from networking around the 'regional / national' identity. But we also realise the shortcomings of the approach mainly in the 'specialisation' of networking around setors & themes. One easy way to overcome is an active collaboration with the 'cluster organisations' in Europe. Cluster initiaves are regionaly embedded but provide the sector focus. For details www.clusterobservatory.eu/
@GABA
Thanks for the great event and for you and your members contributing to the conclusions and follow-up.
Sven Schade, European Commission