Innovation Convention 2014

Europe is hungry for innovation success stories but it’s the challenges these innovators encounter on their way to success that ultimately tell us how easy it is to create and scale up a business in Europe today.

Lack of entrepreneurial climate and a challenging regulatory environment in some parts of the EU make the landscape still unfit for many potential start-ups. By exploring the life-cycle of an entrepreneur, "The Digital Revolution: riding the next wave of innovation" session,  introduced and led by the global COO of Telefonica, José María Álvarez-Pallete, will bring together leading entrepreneurs to share insights and antidotes on how they found success. Has Europe put in place the necessary tools to trigger the next wave of innovative firms and generate the necessary growth? What are the collective solutions that the young generation expects today from all the key actors of the ecosystem, from policy-makers to business leaders? What are the right skills, mind-set and business environment that will improve Europe’s position as a global hub of innovation?  What can we learn from current successful initiatives across the world, from Eastern Europe to America?

We believe that those who identified and developed an opportunity and taken it to market are in the best position to debate and inform policy makers on what is needed to realise Europe’s 2020 growth ambitions and create a more entrepreneurial climate.

Join José María Álvarez-Pallete, Global COO Telefonica SA, Mark Surman, Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation, Doug Richard, former Dragon from Dragons Den and founder of SchoolForStartups, Erki Urva, Head of the Estonian Information Technology Foundation for Education and Anne-Marie Imafidon, founder of Stemettes in an interactive discussion followed by a Q&A session on 11 March 2014 from 09:30 to 10:45 at the Innovation Convention 2014 at the Square in Brussels.

More information here.