Innovate!Europe 2005 – Transforming Technology Innovation in Europe
Innovate!Europe 2005 gathered nearly 400 senior executives from 16 countries and featured 22 Innovator companies to address entrepreneurship in Europe. Coverage from leading business and technology journalists throughout Europe and North America reached hundreds of thousands of readers - online and in print.
CLICK HERE to review the Agenda and download slide presentations from the 2005 event.
CLICK HERE to view the EventSpace with comments and coverage generated by participants.
CLICK HERE to participate in Innovate!Europe 2006.
Chris Shipley's Innovate!Europe 2005 Closing Remarks
These last two days have been a whirlwind of learning. And I must start by thanking all of you for sharing your ideas, your experiences, your contrarian views. Your active participation in our discussions have made this conference incredibly valuable, and your perspectives have contributed considerably to the work of white paper, and to the work each of us will take from this place.
I arrived in Zaragoza with a set of expectations about how this conference would go. I expected that we would uncover some very difficult problems – changes that would be hard to make. I expected that we would identify obvious challenges that would be easier to overcome.
And perhaps, what I heard was that the hard things will be easy – at least easier than I expected – and the easy things may, indeed, be very hard.
We might have expected that this conference would issue a bold cry for massive change in the business and political infrastructure–- a call, for example, for more homogeneous regulations to make cross-border businesses easier. In fact, there was very little of that.
As we heard from Mårten and our panelists this morning, there are diverse and effective strategies for building global businesses, and these strategies are working. Transatel consolidates an international team in one location; MySQL is highly distributed with employees working in 100 countries. Both strategies work, and we can learn from them.
We might have expected to hear about specific business practices that must be learned and adopted, and indeed we did. This is neither hard, nor easy, but simply work that must be done. European businesses must learn the art of product management, we were told several times yesterday. And this afternoon the point was well made that innovation must be driven in collaboration with customers to be truly valuable.
And we expected, of course, to talk about culture –- the culture of entrepreneurship and of risk. And we heard from Sven yesterday, Marten this morning, and in one way or another from almost all of our speakers, that entrepreneurs must learn to embrace risk.
This, of course, is a very hard thing. In fact, it may well be easier to reform regulations throughout Europe than it is to encourage just one individual to step off the cliff of entrepreneurship – and for his European colleagues to catch him if he falls and applaud him if he flies.
If, as Mårten suggests, society’s values are reflected in the heroes it chooses, then we must celebrate entrepreneurs and turn them into heroes in order to build a society that values and honors technology and business innovation.
Perhaps one thing I did not expect – at least in the measure that I witnessed this week – was the individual empowerment and connectedness among each of you. No one here is wrestling with these issues alone.
While we recognize and agree that the European Technology Innovation Ecosystem is fragmented, it is clear that through open and candid dialog, these fragments can come together.
This morning, Mårten talked about the value of this wonderful heterogeneous continent as a driver for innovation. As entrepreneurs learn from one another’s cultures and experiences, they see new ways of designing products, serving customers, solving products, building businesses.
The not-so-subtle theme that underlay each of the speakers at Innovate!Europe is the need for change.
Change is, indeed, very hard. But, I am feeling optimistic that change can happen.
I am confident that this will not be a conference where important ideas are discussed and, I quote again Mårten Mikos, “Absolutely nothing happens.”
I believe the people in this room have the desire to make change happen, the willingness to teach others, the willingness to lead.
As you reflect on these last two days, I remind you of the three questions we posited at the beginning of the conference:
As you answer these questions, I hope you will post your ideas and comments to the White Paper discussion Wiki.
More importantly, as you ask yourself, “what can I do to change the ecosystem?” I hope that you will, indeed, do it.
I thank you for being a part of this important dialog.
And again, I thank our sponsors for making this dialog possible.
Lastly, and most importantly, I thank the 20 showcase companies who shared with us their excellent innovations and I thank all of you for being here to share your stories, your ideas.
There is energy and optimism in this room, and I trust that you will, indeed, change your world.
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To see more of what happened at Innovate!Europe, to view the presentations, and to contribute to the conversation about European Innovation and Entrepreneurship, visit the White Paper Wiki.
Chris Shipley's Opening of Innovate!Europe 2005
Buenos Dias! Bienvenue! Wilkommen! Welcome! . . . To Innovate!Europe!
I have been waiting for nearly eight years to say that! It was that long ago that I conceived the idea to create a conference to celebrate Europe’s best ICT technologies. Over the past eight years, Europe’s fractured markets have begun to come together. The Internet bubble accelerated European entrepreneurship . . . and then, when that bubble burst, it slowed the pace again.
In eight years, we have talked to thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, public administrators, customers, academics . . . and we have always agreed that the technology in development throughout Europe is first rate, world class.
Yet we have also seen that there are huge gaps between innovation and commercialization. And that, ultimately, is what this conference is about. We will look into that gap to try to understand how to fill it.
We are not alone in this effort. Over eight years, many wonderful people have welcomed me into their confidence and helped define the issues that we will address these next two days. They – like you – have had the vision to see that the challenges in the European Technology Innovation Ecosystem are real, yet can be overcome.
They – like you – know that technology and innovation can be leveraged for great economic benefit.
Among the new supporters of Innovate!Europe is the Government of Aragon, which through the development of technology centers and the creation of venture capital and other programs, is indeed working to transform this beautiful region into a leading information society.
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To see more of what happened at Innovate!Europe, and to contribute to the conversation about European Innovation and Entrepreneurship, visit the White Paper Wiki.
"There is clearly no equivalent in Europe to the world-class innovation events found in the US. I am confident Chris and her group will deliver exactly that! As an early stage venture capital investor, I will be looking hard for strong innovators operating under the radar screen or outside of our usual sourcing channels."Fred Destin, Partner - Atlas Ventures
Innovate!Europe: A Catalyst for Change
From the outset, Innovate!Europe was designed as a conversation among the actors in the European Technology Innovation Ecosystem with the intent of strengthening ties among these groups in order to build a more efficient, pan-European environment to support technology entrepreneurship and accelerate the next wave of great European tech companies.
Guidewire Group has spent hundreds of hours talking with European investors, entrepreneurs, technology executives, researchers, public administrators, and other individuals who play critical roles in driving technology innovation from concept to the commercial market. Without exception, these individuals agree that the European technology markets are hindered by business, education, policy and cultural challenges that must be overcome. European technology innovators, they say, must do better.
Based on this consensus, Guidewire Group is bringing together a program of speakers who are leading the call for change and setting the agenda for the New European Technology Innovation Ecosystem. These speakers have raised capital, built companies, taken them global, sold them or closed them. They have invested in new ideas, built management teams, and navigated difficult exit strategies. They have tangled with regulators, and promoted public agendas. In short, they represent a new class of technology innovators, focused on the challenges and opportunities of technology commercialization.
The experiences of these speakers will serve as the foundation for a two-day symposium focused on the key issues in the ecosystem, from establishing companies with global ambitions from the outset to addressing the cultural mores that hinder entrepreneurship in Europe. Collectively, the business leaders who will come together at Innovate!Europe will construct a framework on which to build a more robust Technology Innovation Economy for European Entrepreneurs. The result of the symposium’s keynotes, roundtable discussions, audience-driven debates and intensive networking will be Innovate!Europe Agenda for the New European Technology Innovation Ecosystem, a ground-breaking white paper that will be delivered to the business leaders, press, and policy makers throughout Europe.
This intimate working symposium marks a turning point in Europe’s Technology Innovation Ecosystem, as investors, executives, entrepreneurs, media, tech company executives, public administrators, and service providers actively engage with one another for the purpose of creating a more vibrant information economy that functions effectively for the benefit of all the actors in the ecosystem.
The actors in this ecosystem can no longer wait passively for conditions in the European marketplace to change. The leaders who attend Innovate!Europe will take the first positive steps toward building a new environment in which technology innovation can flourish.
Show your leadership; join us at Innovate!Europe.