Portugal: Start-up city: why Lisbon’s is luring entrepreneurs

Lisbon has much to offer the multitudes of tourists who visit every year but it’s now also proving attractive to entrepreneurs. Under a special programme the city has created excellent conditions for fostering SMEs and the results so far are impressive.

“In two and a half years, we have installed more than 70 new businesses in Lisbon and have already managed to create more than a 160 new jobs,” says Lisbon City Council Project Manager Maribel Rodrigues Ferreira.

By the majestic walls of Saint Jorge castle in the heart of Lisbon we meet the man behind one of the programme’s success stories .

From his Tuk-Tuk Tiago Ribeiro sells beautifully packaged speciality canned Portuguese fish products. He was the first entrepreneur to have been helped by the Lisbon scheme, which immediately saw the appeal of his his concept.


Read more: Start-up city: why Lisbon’s is luring entrepreneurs | euronews, business planet

Computer Industry: Berlin start-up scene: Europe′s ′Silicon Valley′? - by Daniela Späth

Berlin is not just a popular tourist destination - it's also home to ever more start-ups.

Berlin has established a reputation as Germany's entrepreneurs' capital. It's seen the highest number of start-ups in the country, ahead of Hamburg, since 2011, according to data from the Bonn Institute for the Study of Small and Mid-size Firms (IfM).

Berlin is well-suited to becoming a leading start-up metropolis in Europe. It's already Europe's number two investment destination after London, according to consultants EY.

Niko Woischnik has been organizing "Tech Open Air," a start-up conference, for four years. He says more and more foreigners attend the conference, which attracts around 5,000 visitors. And he isn't surprised.

"The cost of living and the rents are relatively low, compared to other European cities," he told DW, adding that Berlin's central location and the fact that English is now the lingua franca also work in the German capital's favor.

Read more: Berlin start-up scene: Europe′s ′Silicon Valley′? | Business | DW.COM | 17.07.2015

Silicon Valley: Entrepreneurs want to bypass visas with offshore colony - by Jessica Guynn

Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, frustrated by the shortage of visas that keep some of the world’s brightest science and engineering minds from building companies on dry land, have hatched a plan to build a start-up colony in the Pacific.

Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija say they plan to park a cruise ship 12 nautical miles off the coast of Northern California in international waters. Foreign-born entrepreneurs would live and work on the ship, building start-ups within commuting distance of Silicon Valley. They wouldn’t need the work visas that are so hard to come by. They would just need business tourism visas that would let them ferry back and forth to Silicon Valley once or twice a week.

The unusual project, called Blueseed, illustrates the fantastical lengths to which some in Silicon Valley are willing to go in their bid to bring more highly skilled foreign workers and entrepreneurs to its shores.

The high-tech industry has been lobbying to increase the cap of 65,000 temporary work visas permitted each year. Strict limits on high-tech visas keep foreigners — many of whom were educated in the United States — on waiting lists for years.

Read more: Entrepreneurs want to bypass visas with offshore colony | StarTribune.com

U.S. tops World List for entrepreneurial opportunity - by Mimi Whitefield

The 2012 Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index, which ranks entrepreneurial characteristics of 79 nations and identifies the entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses of their economies, gave the United States the edge over runners-ups Sweden and Australia.

Rounding out the top ten were Iceland, Denmark, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands and Taiwan in a tie for 10th place.

Asian countries, including China, India, Korea and Malaysia, had big declines in entrepreneurship in 2011.

And even though the United States led the index, the researchers said it still has a long ways to go to recover lost ground. “The U.S. is a society in distress with communities hurting across the country,” Acs said. “This does not bode well for American entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship does not emerge from sick societies. It emerges from healthy societies.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/09/2581315/us-still-tops-for-entrepreneurs.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/09/2581315/us-still-tops-for-entrepreneurs.html#storylink=cpy

For more: U.S. still tops for entrepreneurs - Business Monday - MiamiHerald.com

Bangkok Post: Builder of a Better World

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Builder of a Better World

"When I was a kid, they said money comes from trees. But today children know that money comes from the ATM. They know that when they don't have money, they can put a card into the machine and take their money out. They also know that if they want to have money, they have to work," said Ancona, founder, CEO and president of KidZania, the world's famous indoor theme park featuring a child-sized replica of a real city. Today, Ancona earns his living through a business that allows children to play, and at the same time, be taught about the value of things around them. It is vital, he said, for children these days to understand the value of money, education, careers and socialisation as well as of other facets in life, as such knowledge can pave the way for a better future when they grow up. In the business world, Ancona is recognised as a famously successful entrepreneurs. Yet his ultimate goal is not just to make financial profits. Rather, the 45-year-old businessman is more committed to creating a better world for the young generation around the globe.

NewKerala.com: Young Indian entrepreneur 'Makes a Difference' in Vienna - by Mehru Jaffer

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Young Indian entrepreneur 'Makes a Difference' in Vienna - by Mehru Jaffer

Bangalore-based Suhas Gopinath, 23, who shot to fame as one of the youngest CEOs in the world, has added another feather to his cap. He has been given the first Make a Difference award here for supporting young entrepreneurs around the world. Gopinath started Globals in 2000 when he was 14 years old from a cyber cafe in Bangalore. He registered the company at San Jose, California, as Indian laws did not allow a minor to start a company. The average age of employees is about 25 years at Globals. However, the plan is to shift the headquarters to Bangalore as soon as the construction work is ready. Gopinath is based in India's Silicon Valley although he travels around the world. Globals already operates from about a dozen countries, including Germany. "But Austria is not Germany. This country is conservative and unique. It is a different kind of challenge to work here," said Gopinath of Austria, one of the richest countries of the European Union (EU). While in Vienna, Gopinath used the opportunity to pick Maya India, an Austrian IT company, as a local partner of Globals.

The Make a Difference award is an initiative of Brainswork, a Viennese consultancy boutique that organised IncredibleEurope, a one-day summit held here in celebration of the work of individuals whose unique talent and creative ideas have made a positive contribution to the world. Along with Gopinath, the other winners for 2009 are Ilse Dippmann, who initiated the Austrian Women's Run, the largest women's running event in Central Europe; Muhammad Mesic, a 24-year-old Bosnian who uses his skills in 56 foreign languages to promote human rights and reconciliation worldwide; as well as professor Luigi Colani, the 80-year-old design legend and professor considered a role model by many young people.

Businessweek: Europe's Mr. Entrepreneurialism - by Jennifer L. Schenker

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Europe's Mr. Entrepreneurialism - by Jennifer L. Schenker

Philippe Pouletty is a man on a mission to boost entrepreneurialism in Europe. A 49-year-old French medical doctor, he launched two successful biotech companies in North America in the 1990s before returning to France in 2000 to launch three more biotechs and to co-found a $385 million Paris venture fund, called Truffle Capital.

Yet for all of his own success as a serial entrepreneur, Pouletty worries that the Old World still isn't producing enough enduring high-fliers in the mold of Genentech (DNA), Cisco Systems (CSCO), or Google (GOOG). He has an interesting take on the problem: It's not a shortage of good ideas or a lack of entrepreneurs willing to leap into the void. Rather, Pouletty says, European venture capital firms and startups don't have enough money to work with because risk-averse institutional investors in Europe aren't placing their bets on entrepreneurialism.

Telegraph: Despite all the gloom and despair, French industry is still prospering - by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

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Despite all the gloom and despair, French industry is still prospering -by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Fifty yards down the road from Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign headquarters on Rue d'Enghien, a thriving start-up company is proof that France's entrepreneurial spirit has not yet been broken by an overweening state.

France boasts an impressive array of world-class companies, many number one in their field. They include: cosmetics (L'Oréal), luxury goods (LVMH), water (Veolia, Suez), transport (Air-France-KLM), materials (Saint-Gobain, Lafarge), tyres (Michelin), industrial gas (Air Liquide), nuclear power (Areva), dairy (Danone), razors (BIC), infrastructure (Vinci, Bouygues), jets (Dassault), spectacles (Essilor), insurance (AXA), restaurants (Sodexho) and retail (Carrefour), to pick a few. In luxury goods, they are super-champions with one third of the global market, making €75bn a year in profits. Louis Vuitton's earnings were 44pc of turnover in 2005, a world record for a company its size.

Inc.com: European Entrpreneurs: Fully Committed - by Stephanie Clifford

Istanbul at dusk
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European Entrpreneurs: Fully Committed by -Stephanie Clifford

Let others proceed gingerly. Bülent Çelebi has set up an American-style company in Turkey, where he enjoys advantages his competition can only dream of.

Four years ago, Çelebi was far away from this smog and bustle, sitting on his porch in Palo Alto, California, and thinking about what a global business might entail. He wanted to build routers, given his engineering background, and sell to emerging countries where broadband penetration was low but rising fast. He could use American chips, and manufacture in Asia. But he thought he could gain a real advantage if he based his business in Istanbul.