A winning concept

All big corporations are struggling to find the best ways to bring in innovation from outside the enterprise .

Start-ups and high-tech businesses are looking to sell their products, and their companies, to major organisations.

Innovation Exchange is where high-tech start-ups, major corporations and venture capital investors come together to do business.  It is the new annual meeting place for the EMEA innovation community to network and do deals.

A panel of experts will forecast how the hottest sectors will evolve over the next 12-18 months. And the coolest young start-ups and entrepreneurs will showcase their companies.

The conference is run by the European Private Equity & Venture Capital Assocation (EVCA), Informilo and the European Tech Tour Association (ETT).

It takes place the day before the EVCA’s annual Venture Capital Forum, ensuring a large attendance by the venture capital community. This year’s event will take place on October 14 at the Radisson Hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The first event, which took place in Berlin on 14 October 2009, included delegates from 13 countries and participation from Google, Nokia, SAP, IBM and Hutchison Whampoa’s 3, among others.

2009 Speakers included:

• Jan Muhfeit, Chairman of Microsoft Europe

• John Manley, Director, Automated Infrastructure Lab, HP Labs

• Chris Hare, General Manager, Head of Industry Collaboration, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications

The conference gives corporate sponsors the chance to choose a technology stream that interests them most. Potential streams include mobile Web, medtech innovations that help bring down the cost of healthcare, smart cities (smart grids, smart metering and other green technologies), digital media and cloud computing but we are open to other ideas.

Once the five streams for 2010 are set the European Tech Tour (ETT), an independent non-profit organization that has been discovering and promoting both early and later stage tech stars for over 10 years, will work to identify outstanding tech companies in Europe and Israel that correspond to each stream. The best will present at the Innovation Exchange.