Postcards from the Edge : Student

Flaming June

claireoh — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:38:08 GMT

After our Brussels summit it was time to get a bit closer to home for the BBAA conference in Brands Hatch (via Barcelona). The sun was still shining at that point. At the awards dinner the night before, I bumped into the very charismatic Richard Farleigh.

Back in London, I caught up with Ian Robertson from NCGE who told me they have 10,200 graduate entrepreneurs registered now. Flying Start helps university grads inventing products and services take them to market and start a business on the back of those ideas. We're hoping to announce a Flying Start for Software Entrepreneurs soon. We also talked about Ian's business dealings in China and I'm helping him find some partners out there.

I also spent some quality time with (Dr) Sally Ernst from Sinocode. They have 90 developers in Beijing and we are looking at ways to help more Euro-based software companies leverage their skills. They already do quite a bit of work for MCS on Sharepoint and for UK customers. Apart from doing business, Sally and I have become good friends. Sal told me about her involvement with the MIT Entrepreneurs Organisation. The EO as it's known is a club for successful ($1m+) entrepreneurs. That rules me out then. I spend too much on shoes. Sal does too but she managed to sell WebCentral in Australia when it had a turnover of $40m+ and now goes between London, China and Oz.

At the team meeting in Amsterdam last week it was time to catch up and see what everyone else was up to. My colleague Andreas just got back from China - he said the smog is really something. Andreas is very very tall. As are most Dutch people it seems. (Good blog from Matt in Beijing by the way). We talked about our team charter for the (fiscal) year ahead. We were brainstorming how to more innovative and effective! You have to constantly challenge yourself if you're going to make a difference at a corporate. That conversation reminded me to send them a copy of Tom Peters Re-Imagine Manifesto. Reading some of the entries on Change This is enlightening too. Better than reading the newspaper at the mo, which I find full of doom and gloom....

No time for that here. After stopping off in Dublin to see Enterprise Ireland again, I was back in Brussels for the JA-YE Europe Entrepreneurship Forum at the EU Parliament. What a great day. I was judging the student team entries for the JA-YE Enterprise Challenge (Microsoft Innovation) award with fellow judges Andy Reinhardt from Business Week, Brian Lang, VP at Mastercard, and Peter Baur from the Commission. Have a look at the pics here. Some of the ideas were really great. Many with an environmental angle - like the intelligent waste solution from the guys in Romania. Next Stop - California!

Brussels Sprouts II

claireoh — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:06:48 GMT

Last week we held our European Investor Summit in Brussels attended by 170+ VC and Angel investors and top tech start-ups from over 20 countries, as well as Microsoft execs.

We saw the launch of our IP Ventures company Zignals, and 45+ exhibiting companies connect with potential investors. Feedback from the start-ups from UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Russia and Greece was really great.

We also had a very lively session moderated by the lovely June Sarpong, where five student teams pitched to a panel of investors in the Meet the Money session. You can see interviews with the Dragon’s Den panel members here.

In addition to our Investor Summit on 11 June, we also held the 4th Annual SME Day on 12 June. Have a look at the SME Day video here.

Microsoft reinforced its commitment to fostering innovation and supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs with our newly announced partnership European Business Angels Network (EBAN) and TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). EBAN represents angel and early stage investment market and together with Microsoft will collaborate in the coming years to build capacity for innovative start-up companies. Under a global agreement, Microsoft and TiE will work closely in Europe: partnering to foster entrepreneurship and innovation globally by educating, mentoring and networking in UK and Nordics.

I'm already looking forward to the next one. We hope to replicate this in the Middle East and Asia in the coming year too. Thanks to everyone who supported this event and I hope you go on to secure funding for your ideas!

Dreams into Reality....DreamSpark

claireoh — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:20:00 GMT

On 19 February at Stanford Uni, BillG announced a major move by Microsoft to give students around the world free access to a variety of Microsoft developer and design software - helping them turn their ideas into reality.

Watch the interview.

The program launches to 35 million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US this quarter and broad global availability will happen over the coming year.

"We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems and catalyze economic growth,” Gates said.