Vienna, March 19, 2010, CITT. „We need a new generation of academics“ was one of the key statements of ICT Centrope, the first ICT clustering & technology transfer conference in the Centrope countries, on March 16 in Vienna.

The purpose of the conference was to look at the ICT markets of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia as one region - Centrope - the “Digital Heart of Europe” and assess their opportunities and success factors from a new angle.

ICT Centrope presented the findings of CITT, an EC funded project investigating into nature, size and efficiency of the collaboration between ICT enterprises and universities and research organisations in the Centrope countries. This kind of collaboration, technology transfer, was and is the key to success for the ICT industries in North America or the Far East.

In Europe, the relationship between business and academia is still less developed than it could or should be. Although the potential for ICT related innovation in the Centrope countries Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia is large, the ICT industry is dominated by foreign multinationals, and local developments rarely find their way to international markets.

Yet, as the conference was able to show, the situation gradually changes and there are examples for successful research collaborations and international breakthroughs. According to Balázs Barta from CITT project partner PBN and Guenther Krumpak, ICT market researcher and networker, Centrope is with a share of almost 7% of Europe’s ICT markets (the largest market is Germany with 21%) not anymore a „quantité négligeable“, and about 60 universities, a workforce of roughly 360,000 ICT specialists and 36,000 people working in ICT related research offer enough capacities for a stronger performance on international ICT markets.

The main barrier for collaboration between business and research is simply communication, as Peter Sinčak, professor for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Technology in Košice, Slovakia, pointed out. Another problem is e.g. the gap between the requirements of academic careers („Publish or perish“) and business oriented project work: Companies don’t want research that results out of their funding to be published. This was confirmed in the panel discussion, led, among others, by Julius Štuller, Czech Academy of Sciences, Martin Sperka from UNINOVA, Bratislava, Thomas Roeblreiter, European Enterprise Network, and Robert Stubenrauch from Softwarepark Hagenberg. „Communication“ in connection with innovation is generally a complex matter, as professor John Tait from the Information Retrieval Facility in Vienna explained in his key note. The panelists agreed to Guenther Krumpak‘s question, „Do we need a new generation of academics?“, i.e.people who understand the language of business and science likewise.

The Best Practice section of the conference showed several very interesting examples for successful technology transfer: Jiří Novotný (INVEA Tech) and Jiří Klemeš (CAMEA), from two university spin-offs from Brno, Gábor Ujhelyi (Meditel) from Hungary, Bernd Kopacek (ISL) and Peter Balog, (University of Applied Science Technikum Wien), both from Vienna.

The event was hosted by Vienna IT Enterprises VITE, the ICT cluster of Vienna’s business agency VBA. VITE was also project coordinator of CITT, whose partners, Ján Chudík  from the BITERAP association from Slovakia, and Michael Novak, CEconsult, Vienna, presented the action plan for a Centrope based cross border ICT cluster as a large scale solution to promote ICT related technoloy transfer and cross border collaboration in the region.

More information:

Christoph Henrichs
Vienna Business Agency
Vienna IT Enterprises (VITE)
Meldemannstrasse 18, A 1200 Vienna
Phone +43 1 93 960-3002
www.vite.at

http://www.centrope-itt.eu

ICT Centrope: The “Digital Heart” of Europe

Vienna/Brno/Bratislava/Györ, Jan. 11, 2010/CITT.  The 1^st ICT Centrope Conference is a premiere: It looks at the ICT markets of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia as one region and assesses their opportunities and success factors from a new angle.

Key words are technology transfer and clustering. The key notes come from John Tait, Chief Scientific Officer at IRF, Vienna, and former Professor at the University of Sunderland, Francisco Eduardo De Sousa Webber, the CEO of Matrixware and Chairman of the Executive Board of IRF, and Eugen Antalovsky, CEO of the Vienna based Europaforum platform.

Everybody considers what has been happening in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989 as “exciting”, yet a few insiders only know what exactly this is about. In fact, the developments in the fields of high tech have indeed been exciting, both in “Western” Austria as well as in the three “Eastern” countries Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Their capitals have become hotspots for multinational enterprises, companies have moved large production units there, the telecom industry has seen growth rates like never before and progress in science and research has been accelerated considerably, from world class semantics in Innsbruck to robotics and artificial intelligence in Košice.

For the first time a convention focuses precisely on these issues and creates awareness of the new structures in Europe: Information and communication technologies and their derivatives have become one of the largest industrial sectors in the region, and yet there is still a big potential, in particular in cross border collaboration, technology transfer and clustering.

The conference presents facts & figures on ICT in Centrope, displays highlights, discusses opportunities as well as obstacles, offers experts and expertise and unveils a new ICT cluster project covering the four countries involved. Interested companies and other private or public institutions are welcome to express their intent!

The conference offers also personal meeting opportunities with representatives of all relevant sectors in the region.

Target groups are ICT enterprises active or interested in the Centrope markets, public administration, opinion leaders, platforms, clusters, venture capitalists, researchers and the press.

ICT Centrope’s venue is Vienna’s Media Tower Conference Hall; the convention takes place on March 16, 2010. Participation is free; registration is required.