Building Global Innovators© is growing international participation, edition to edition and getting the attention of entrepreneurs from new parts of the globe. Submissions outside Portugal reached 42%, from 13 Nations including READ MORE

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Newsletter #16, 18th June, 2012
The VC model is broken
Global Entrepreneurs: Thank you for your strong
A recent report published by Kauffman reckons participation!
the industry needs to shrink in size and that the
returns in recent years have been deceivingly low
when compared to the risk downside The industry Building Global Innovators© is growing international
needs to innovate urgently. Dave McClure, head
of VC portfolio at Kauffman, argues that we can participation, edition to edition and getting the attention of
do better. And he is right. Read more.
entrepreneurs from new parts of the globe. Submissions
outside Portugal reached 42%, from
PPL Crowdfunding – People powering start-
ups
13 Nations including Belarus, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico,
PPL –
Crowdfunding was Russia, Spain, USA
recently accredited by US CAPS for its security
and transparency. It aims to democratize the
support to small and medium entrepreneurial 132 Submissions involving 500 professionals
projects lacking incentives to overcome the
current barriers to finance.
From 1€ support, anyone can be an investor and 50% from incorporated start-ups or spin-outs
so have a real impact on a start-up, in exchange
for a gift or reward. Together, we can shape an
entire new VC industry! What next: The Jury is reviewing the applications and on the
2nd July will announce and invite the 20 Semifinalists to join e-
'The Golden Age of Silicon Valley Is Over, and
We're Dancing on its Grave' teams I crash course based in Lisbon, Portugal – keep posted
here!
“… this is the
beginning of
the end of the ____________________________________
valley as we
know it. Silicon
Valley
historically SFINNO database is providing a new way of
would invest in tracking down impacts of public innovation
science, and technology, and as you know, actual
silicon. If you were a good VC you could make funding: The Finish case from Tekes.
$100 million. Now there's a new pattern created
by two big ideas. Read more. By Raine Hermans
Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, Director, Strategic Intelligence
TechStars NYC 2012: 7 startups to watch

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Due to the global competition and shrinking public budgets it is
Startup incubator
TechStars NYC hosted
important to allocate limited resources to those innovation
recently its 3rd Demo activities and innovations which have the highest economic
Day to present its latest and societal impacts. But which one to pick? Strategic choices
class of graduates. have to be backed up with in-depth knowledge and research-
based methodologies. By the same token, it is crucially
The 13 companies, which were culled from more
important to provide information to decision-makers and tax-
than 1,600 applicants, have been working for the
past 3 months and presented to +700 members of payers on how public spending in innovation activity has
the tech community. Of the 23 startups backed by generated economic results and wider societal impacts. New
TechStars last year (in two classes), 21 raised a methodological approaches with underlying analysis are
collective $55 million. See here the pitches! needed and we give an example here on how the impact
analysis has been conducted lately in Finland.
So You Think You Can Pitch 2012
The Technical Research Centre of Finland, VTT has made a
path-breaking research on the sources, nature and
After 4 months of hard work and sessions in
Lisbon and Braga, 15 business ideas and 48
development of Finnish innovations. During the last 15 years
finalists were chosen to be part of the So You the so-called SFINNO project has identified nearly 5,000
Think You Can Pitch Final, on the 31st May. After innovations and collected data on them. This database makes
a 2 minutes elevator pitch to a Jury panel, 6 ideas it possible to make versatile studies of the renewal of the
were selected! Good luck to all! Finnish economy and innovation environment. The study at
Marketing, hand represents pioneering work in the area of impact analysis
Sales, in Finland. It is even internationally unique since the SFINNO
Technology, database is significantly richer in content and wider in scope
Business
Ideas and Criative Industries were the 5 tracks in compared to other ones abroad. (See figure 1.)
contest.
Roles of Tekes assessed
Big Data Can Save Health Care—But at What The SfinPact study and report provides a new perspective on
Cost to Privacy? the various roles that a funding agency, Tekes has played in
innovation-driven renewal in Finland. Their most recent report
Medical research would benefit greatly from
massive, publicly shared sets of patient assesses different roles that Tekes – the Finnish Funding
information. Find out how. Agency of Technology - has had in the Finnish innovation
system. Tekes is the main government funding agency that
supports both the academic research and enterprise R&D
activity with an annual volume of 610 million Euro in 2012. The
present strategy puts a strong focus on growth
entrepreneurship. The results of the report are based on a
representative sample, since almost 900 innovators answered
the survey.
VTT updates the survey every other year by identifying
5 Ways Mobile App developers will Transform
Healthcare innovations in economic and technical publications. This
object-oriented approach is complemented by sending a
With the explosive growth in digital health apps – questionnaire to the innovator. Based on the questionnaire,
the market for mobile health apps is expected to different typologies of innovations are defined and linked to
quadruple to $400 million by 2016, promise to individual innovations, to actors in the Finnish innovation
radically change the way health care is delivered
and accessed. The impact of this shift on the
system. An innovation is defined here as a new product,

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healthcare system and how consumers use and service or method that produces economic or social benefit.
act on health information should not be
underestimated. Read more
The original and most visible function has been the role of
Tekes as a major provider of R&D and innovation funding.
The Online Education Tsunami is about to hit More than 60% of the innovations in the SFINNO database
us have had funding from Tekes. The role of Tekes funding has
been significant in 80% of these innovations according to the
In the past few months some of the world’s most
elite universities have begun offering select online
respondents (Figure 2). However, its roles as an activator,
courses. Harvard and MIT have recently networker, coordinator, investor, accelerator or foresighter
committed $60 million to EdX, a partnership that have been less visible, thought important as well. This
will post some of these elite universities’ courses, assessment provided a strict link Tekes funding, programme
for free online. Similarly, Stanford recently offered activities and recognised Finnish innovations in the market
an online course on artificial intelligence. As
Stanford President John Hennessy tells us, “there
place.
is a tsunami coming.”
Links between Tekes funding and innovations in the
This “tsunami” raises some important questions marketplace
for traditional universities that are passive. If you
are interested in knowing more about this and Tekes has also had a particularly significant role in
participate in a web conference, delivered by Prof. internationalization of Finnish companies. Tekes funded 69%
Peter Haddawy, register here.
of innovations that were new to the global market (Figure 3).
Tekes’ program activities have attempted to network of the
YA – First Step: a new edition coming up academia and industry. The role as the facilitator of academe-
industry networks are pinpointed in creation of
Young Audax – First Step is looking for bold commercialization of scientific research results. The innovation
young entrepreneurs (13 up to 18 years old)
that is based on scientific breakthrough has been funded by
looking for a challenging bootcamp to generate
new ideas and start learning about putting them Tekes in 94 percent of the cases (Figure 2).
into actual practice.
Tekes’ role is connected to the long term development.
A 1st bootcamp Therefore, innovations that are closer to the market can access
at ISCTE-IUL to many other sources of funding, and Tekes is involved in only
and a 2nd one as
over 1/3 of the innovations that enter in a year the
a Summer
Camp in lovely marketplace. Tekes takes part in more challenging cases with
medieval town longer duration of development. For instance, Tekes has
of Almeida, north Portugal, are the next editions. funded 60% of those innovations having entered the
Limited number of places, register now! marketplace after being developed from 3-4 years, and almost
2/3 of innovations required at least 5 years of development
Católica's BET is powering Summer of duration. (Table 1.).
Startups
The SFINNO report assesses Tekes’ role as an activator of
From July 16th to August 14th BET – Bring
R&D activities and a networker of universities, research
Entrepreneurs Together is scheduling a Summer institutes and businesses in addition to its role as a funder.
session to entrepreneurs. Directed to those aiming Tekes has played an important part in the development of
to develop a business model. Team building, entire sectors. These sectors are defined as seven thematic
matching entrepreneurs together and workshops, areas, such as game industry or health-related biomaterials. It
are part of the program sessions. Interested? Go
to the website and register.
also presents the success stories of several innovations –
including Rovio’s Angry Birds, Raisio’s Benecol, St1’s
bioethanol and Polar Electro’s wrist computers.

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Check our site for new great job offers here
Materials on the web
Save the Dates – update your calendar now:
In conjunction with the publication of the report, Tekes
published a website called Innovation Interstate that provides a
June - October Rock Health Events visual presentation of the connections between the Finnish
20.06.2012 Marketing Essentials innovation field, social changes and Tekes programmes from
for a U.S. Product Launch the 1980s through to today. The website has been created by
25.06.2012 Online Education Tsunami Flo Apps Ltd.
15:30-16:30 (Paris time)
26.06.2012 AppCircus in Lisbon!
26-27.06.2012 Young Innovators To know more: Tekes Review 289/2012: Funder, activator, networker,
Unconvention investor & Innovation Interstate
16 – 19.07.2012 e-Teams I, Crash Course
19.07.2012 Software SIG Event: Is There
a Business Here?
The Organization wishes to thank to Raine Hermans for his contribution to
More events around Europe? Here the current Newsletter issue with this emerging research paper.
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