NEWSLETTER No. 3 December2011

01 | December 2011

CONTENT Interview with Benjamin Techen………….… 1

Study visit in Minsk………….………….………….….…….………2

IBI Net – particular benefits for

countries of the Baltic Sea Region……3

Task Force Meeting for ICT Tool

development in Riga…………………..………………..……… 4

Study Visit in Sweden……………………………………….. 5

Further activities ……………………………………………………….. 5

IBI Net IN FIGURES Launched on December, 2009

Duration: 30 months

Number of partners: 7 from Latvia,

Norway, Sweden, Poland, Germany,

Belarus and an Associated Partner

from Russia

Total budget: 677 050 EUR, incl.

- ERDF: 507 800 EUR

- ENPI: 100 450 EUR - Norwegian National

Funding: 68 800 EUR

ESTABLISHMENT OF INTERNATIONAL INCUBATOR ASSOCIATION

On the 15th of September in Berlin business incubators and technology centers from Germany, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, Belarus and Denmark founded the International Business Incubator Association - IBI NET. It is established to join the business incubators of the Baltic Sea Region. Since establishment of the Association is a significant accomplishment in the project „Intercountry Business Incubators Network” (IBI NET), we asked Benjamin Techen, who manages establishment of the Association, to tell more about it.

How was the idea of establishment of the International Business Incubator Association born?

Germany already has such an association on the national level – ADT (The Federal German association of innovation, technology and business incubation centres as well as science and technology parks). It is the association of all the technology centers in the country. Also we learnt that Sweden has similar structures operating at the national level. Furthermore, the advantages on the national level of having such an association have become self-evident.

Also because of expanding abroad our contacts on the international level will become more and more important within Europe hence this structure in the international level is just a logical outcome.

There are structures like this in existence already. Why is this Business Incubator Association so important?

Of course we have taken notice of the fact that similar big international associations already exist yet it was vital for us to construct such an association from scratch so that it would 100% fit our needs. It will support new and smaller business incubators and thus will fully achieve both aims of the projects.

Why the establishment of such an association is so crucial in development of innovation in the Baltic Sea Region?

Incubation processes are playing a major role in development of the capital, human resources and the knowledge. With visionary management and bundling of economic, social and legislative resources IBI Net intends to become a very suitable network for the transfer of technology and knowledge among the business incubators in Europe.

It is obvious that such networks will become more and more paramount for start-up business survival in the market. Start-ups need the possibility to go to the international markets therefore need the help and advice.

Benjamin Techen, Project Manager, Center of Technology Western-Pomerania

! ATTENTION !

!Last activity of the IBI Net project: closing event with contact exchange and gala conference will be held in May, 2012 in Riga. Contact Exchange will be great

opportunity for all business incubators to present themselves and make new contacts for cooperation.

Partners of the IBI Net Association

to date:

- Technologiezentrum

Fördergesellschaft mbH

Vorpommern, Germany

- BIC Frankfurt (Oder) GmbH,

Germany

- StiftelsenTeknikdalen, Sweden

- Republican Innovative Unitary

Enterprise “Scientific and

Technological Park BNTU

Polytechnic”, Belarus

- Riga Technical University, Latvia

- Riga Region’s Business

Development Incubator, Latvia

- Innovation Centre Hedmark,

Norway

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Existing incubators have the ability to fulfill this task but being a member of an association would help them to improve their business. It would provide deeper contacts, stronger networks and all the help the start-up business would need for going international or growing in their domestic markets. This association will also help to improve the general business environment, technology centers and incubators.

For the Baltic Sea Region this is especially important as because of the small domestic market the start-up businesses are forced to go international in a very early stage of development.

What are the main goals and tasks of the association?

IBI Net is a mediating and coordinating association without actually regulating the direction of its members. Its strength lies in the strengths of its individual members. The association implies the coordination of existing partnerships and activities as well as stimulating the creation of new ones.

Among other things the IBI Net offers: - A platform for collaboration between

business incubators - Improvement of its members

businesses (e.g. optimization through benchmarking)

- Marketing activities (e.g. lobbying for public financing and recognition BI importance in the society)

- A platform for dialog with academia, public institutions, private businesses, individuals and supranational institutions

- A wide range of specialists - The possibility of advanced training

concerning the business incubation topics

- Service solutions (e.g. Software tools, independent consulting)

- Attraction of capital and human resources

- Coordination of joint efforts in research, education and technology transfer

By accumulating human and financial resources IBI Net also wants to initiate new developments, implement new services and improve the already existing service offers to promote the creation of new jobs and subsequently new businesses. The development of IBI Net requires that these values are respected and that all parties involved do benefit from it in the course of their cooperation.

Please describe scheme of the Association’s running (how will it operate)?

It is a bit difficult to describe; the association will operate through the executive board which will decide the main aims of the projects and how they should be fulfilled. These decisions however will also have to be approved by the general assembly in order for every member to have a chance of bringing up his ideas.

How do you assess the progress of the establishment process in the mean time? What is the status now?

The association was founded in the 15th of September in Berlin and now it is important to get it registered in the register of the associations. Afterwards the association can start its work in full. The application form is already handed in the appropriate institutions and we are awaiting a positive result within the next three weeks. After that the board will prepare the general assembly which will take place in the beginning of 2012. At it the tasks and the main aims for the following year will be presented and discussed.

What are nearest events/steps to be taken in work of the association?

Next step will be the mentioned preparation for the general assembly where the main aims and the planned activities will be presented. The following big step will be finding new active and enthusiastic members that are keen to help the association.

Are there any references from BIs, some government institutions or policy makers about establishment of the association?

Despite the association is not officially registered yet, we already know that everyone that has heard about our activities and the prospect of such an association is quite excited and clearly recognizes the need for it. It is a good sign that predicts the growth of the organization in the following year.

How could you describe the long term plans of the association? What will happen after the project is completed?

General aims are described in the preamble. The Association should keep on going after the end of the projects; therefore all results should be implemented in the Association. So that in the best case scenario, IC Tools, IBI net portal, benchmark, and all other things can be used by the members of the association.

STUDY VISIT IN MINSK

On 23-24 August 23, 2011 IBI Net project partners met in Minsk, Belarus to showcase IBI Net project to Belarusian authorities. During the meeting also leading business incubators from Belarus presented their activities and experiences how businesses are supported. Participants were introduced to Mogilev Technology Park, pubic corporation „APSEL”, business incubator „LIDA”. Partners visited Scientific and Technological Park BNTU „Polytechnic” and Youth Business Incubator of small entrepreneurship. During the second day of the visit, the 3rd Project Steering Committee took place during which the project progress was discussed.

Partners of IBI Net project in Minsk

POLAND

First BIs in Poland were launched in the beginning of nineties of last century. First business incubators were launched within a framework of EU funded projects having an infrastructure component. The aim of them was to stimulate the development of entrepreneurship. The Structural Funds facilitated further growth of incubators to upgrade Polish economy through supporting the originators and pro-innovative businesses.

Business incubators are predominantly focusing on supporting the economic initiatives of small companies. At first BIs had a regional character; they were launched on the areas threatened by unemployment. Today they are oriented towards young entrepreneurs, especially – though not only – to students and graduates.

The incubators act in a form of foundations, associations, agencies and companies. The Academic Entrepreneurship Incubators are most known institutions in Poland, aimed at promoting the entrepreneurship. They act in 30 universities in a whole country and take care of over 900 companies.

Those pre-incubators are very helpful, even though they don’t introduce the beginners in the hard world of the market game. They prolong the didactic process, show how to use the knowledge and competences in order to find own market niche.

In each region there are institutions which enable the enterprising people to take risk connected with the economic activities. In Poland there are approx. 80-90 incubators of entrepreneurship of a different territorial range.

Most of the incubators are open minded. The young entrepreneur has to have a passion, good idea for the business (business-plan is needed). The in cubators are dedicated to companies which are to come into being, or companies already existing but not longer than two years (in some

03 | December 2011

some incubators – not longer than a year); the so called start-ups.

In Poland there are: - Academic Entrepreneurship

Incubators (Pre-incubators) - Entrepreneurship Incubators - Technology Incubators – among

them Elbląg Incubator of Modern Information Technologies.

The majority of incubators set up nowadays are situated in technology parks. This enables continuing their activity within technology parks.The most known and active incubators are: Wielkopolskie Centrum Innowacji i Przedsiębiorczości in Poznań, Wrocławski Inkubator Przedsiębiorczości in Wrocław, Fundacja Inkubator in Łódź and Entrepreneurship Incubator in Gdynia within the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park.

Elbląg Incubator of Modern Information Technologies is focusing on developing the ICT business in the city. The incubator supports persons, who start the economic activities and young companies already existing, dealing with informatics. They can run their business within the incubator for two years, after that they can move to Elblag Technology Park or choose their own way of development.

In Elblag Incubator companies can receive following support: lower rental costs; access to internet; possibility of using the computer equipment and software, legal advice, economy, finances, patents; help in searching the business partners; information on possibilities of financing the activities; trainings and conferences.

The study visits in Norway and Sweden showed some important differences between them and Elblag Incubator: the Scandinavian ones are more open minded; the higher rental costs are not a barrier in getting into the Incubator (example: Fabrikken in Lillehammer); the whole process of being within the incubator is very well monitored and carried out with help of couches (Swedish incubators).

Implementation of IBI-NET Project is a good example, which enables exchange of good practices from Europe, especially from Sweden. Co-operation and exchange

of information, contacts between project partners, as well as creating the co-operation net in the regions of Europe are a big chance for dynamic development and strengthening the potential of SME on the markets of all partner countries.

Beata Dziuba, Communication officer of the IBI Net project,

City Commune of Elblag

GERMANY

Technology Center and BIs are widely distributed over the whole Germany. It is one possibility for the country to support business foundlings.

Often they were built up to support one special region. Like our Center of Technology Western-Pomerania TZV (which was founded shortly after the German reunification), the main task was of course to strengthen the region, to give here something we could call a restart.

Many of German incubators and technology centers are organized in the ADT (German Association of Innovation, Technology and Business Incubation Centres). 157 Technology centers are organized in the ADT, that means, that there are 5 800 companies with 46 000 employees. The technology centers support 17 400 successful company funding with more than 120 000 new jobs. Companies which start in a technology center have a survival rate of 90%.More than 8 000 companies left the technology center and start growing more and more. They created more than 90 000 new jobs. And those are just some facts about the

technology centers which are organized

IBI NET – PARTICULAR BENEFITS FOR COUNTRIES OF

THE BALTIC SEA REGION

Within the framework of the IBI Net project, a number of experience exchange visits and workshops have been completed in partner countries. These exchanges were important in identification of new ideas and inspirations about the place and role of business incubators in innovation system as well as new approaches in working with companies to serve them better. The 3rd issue of IBI Net Newsletter captures experiences and lessons learned.

organized in the ADT. Over all in Germany technology centers supported more than 40 000 company funding with more than 248 000 new jobs.

Often these technology centers are strongly connected to the big industry or universities next to them. You can see it in the Ruhr region, there are many big enterprises and special universities, like Bayer or BASF, so there will be centers which are strongly connected to them, but there will be also other who are connected to the universities in the region, or for example in Bremen, there is EADS and Frauenhofer Institut. Here in Greifswald, we try to have a strong connection to plasma physics because of the university and to medicine technology also because of the university and their hospital.

Thanks to participating in IBI Net Project we have learned a lot from all our partners. We saw different ways, for example the connection to the art incubator in Norway, which showed us, that it can be very useful to connect art with business, but also that it would be a total new challenge. We learned from our Swedish Partners that they have very strong structures which they try to follow. Thereby they have the possibility to take their concept and put it in another environment, like the sports, music, or gamecubator. And this specialized concept seems to be very useful also for our structures here.

Participation in the IBI Net Project, is very important for further development of our region. Now we have new challenges, like improving our own business by implementing all the new things we learned. Furthermore we want to use the new and strong contacts to our partners that we can cooperate also after the project ending. Offer a soft landing space for other companies and also being an initial aid for our companies to go international. And in the next step we want to be the bridgehead to the Baltic Sea Region, with good connections, networks and so on.

Benjamin Techen, Project Manager, Center of Technology Western-Pomerania

NORWAY

Business incubators today are fairly widely spread across Norway. In total there are about 26 business incubators in Norway.

Business incubators are closely linked with universities and university colleges across the country. Ipark in Stavanger, Innovation centers in Bodo, Proneo, Vaerdal and Conventure Kristiansand are the most active and dynamically developing business incubators in Norway.

Each business incubator in Norway has particular focus on a specific field of business either linked to development priority of the region or the business idea is linked to the area where the business incubator has developed a specific competence. However, any business idea is supported if the start-up has a drive or the growth potential of the start-up is ranked as high above average.

If compared to the other countries in region, we see that the funding schemes are very different for business incubators if compared in IBI Net partner countries. Some of the BIs have a low public founding share in their budgets, therefore, they seek income generating activities, i.e., renting out office space and facilities. We at Innovation Centre Hedmark pay a great attention to providing knowledge services: consulting and guiding the companies. Others have a good system(maybe some(be)

TASK FORCE MEETING FOR ICT TOOL

DEVELOPMENT IN RIGA

some rigid) to follow up the businesses, while we have a more ad hoc approach to the challenges the businesses in the BI face. We could take more of the system-thinking in our incubator as a start.

By the date we have already learned a lot about other countries BIs in the region, and we have got some good contacts that later can be nice to have. Seeing how others do it is interesting and invaluable experience.

As the most significant gain form the Project, we are expecting to benefit from some of the knowledge-exchange and from making very good contacts that both the BIs and our businesses in the BIs can benefit from.

Øyvind Nordstrand, Project Manager in Innovation Centre Hedmark

On November 3 in Riga very significant Task Force Meeting of IBI Net project aiming at further development of ICT Tool for monitoring and facilitating the development of business incubator companies (ICT Tool), was held.

The meeting aimed to detail out specific modules and functionalities of the ICT Tool that would be usable and adaptable to the existing practice of partner business incubators and is specifically aimed to specialists/coaches of partner business incubators which will be the main users of the IT Tool.

Presentation of ICT Tool for monitoring and facilitating the development of business incubator companies was given by Benjamin Techen from Center of Technology Western-Pomerania TZV (Germany). Also during the Task Force Meeting participating partners presented their current approaches in business incubators: tools and methods used for monitoring the development process of companies. Consultations continued on the functionalities of IT solution for monitoring the development process of start-up companies.

04 | December 2011

Riga Planning Region Phone: +371 67559823 Fax: +371 67226431 E-mail: inga.brieze@rpr.gov.lv

www.ibi-net.eu

IBI Net Project partners in Falun, Sweden

Each company in incubator, no matter which phase it is, has its own couch who complements the company, brings-in business thinking, initiates contacts, identifies development needs, facilitates the goal setting, identifying actions, fosters decision making, focusing and pushing the company to follow-up of goals and activities. Not all companies that are in pre-incubator, reaches the further development parts of the program. Companies should fight for a place in next program.

The partners of Teknikdalen Foundation are – among the others – educational and development centres. Within these centres the students have possibility to develop their business ideas and use them in a practical way for their own economic activities. First and foremost it’s the answer for the market needs and strengthening the regional capability of the following branches: music (Boom Town), sport (Dala Sports Academy) and ICT (Gamecubator).

IBI Net Study Visit in Borlänge, Sweden

05 | December 2011

Activities of Swedish partners are concentrated on searching people or groups of people with good ideas, passion and will of creating good businesses compatible with the region’s development directions. Teknikdalen as well as its partner organisations try to sustain the verve and – using the know-how and practical side of making business – to help the young entrepreneurs put into effects their ideas. The Swedish example is a world-scale good practice. It’s a model tested not only in the Scandinavian countries, but also other well developed countries in the world.

FURTHER

ACTIVITIES OF the IBI Net

March 2012. Partners’ meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia

May 2012. Contact Exchange and the closing conference of IBI Net project.

More information: Inga Brieze, IBI Net Project Manager of Riga Planning Region, inga.brieze@rpr.gov.lv .

The two-day study visit in Borlänge, Sweden, enabled getting to know the methods and projects carried out by Teknikdalen Foundation and its co-operators. These methods are used for the entrepreneurship development of the region. In Sweden there are 22 business incubators similar to Teknikdalen. They all co-operate within INNOVATIONSBRON – the system worked out by the government and other organisations, which among the others relays on the permanent contact with the incubators and yearly evaluation of their activities.

Visiting Dala Sports Academy and its technology transfer centre in Sweden

Teknikdalen Foundation Business Incubator incubation process consists of three stages of supporting the incubated companies:

1. “Business Start” or pre-incubator: for this stage Teknikdalen searches out the entrepreneurs with passion, having good ideas, good know-how combined with a will and determination to create growth

2. “Business Lab”: good ideas meet experience – each entrepreneur, supported by its own coach, builds the company and makes action plan necessary to enter the market

3. “Business Accelerator”: helps the start-ups to appear on the market – implementation of the worked out marketing plan, sales plan and commercialization.

IBI NET PARTNERS MET IN STUDY VISIT IN SWEDEN On October 5 – 6, 2011 IBI Net project partners and invited guests met in Borlänge, Sweden to learn about the way business incubators provide their services in Sweden. During two intensive working days, the organizing partner - Teknikdalen Foundation - presented their methods in working with startups and the role of business incubators in innovation system of Dalarna region and Sweden as well as project partners met representatives of Dalarna University College, Dala Sports Academy, innovation projects “Boom Town”, “Gamecubator” and innovative enterprise “Ruta Ett”.