The BarCamp concept isn’t new, nor is it new to Budapest. What is new is that this fifth edition of the Web 2.0 Symposium / Bar Camp Budapest features a startup competition sponsored by Budapest Bank. Each of six finalists will be given 10 minutes to present their business ambitions to a jury of professional investors. The first three finalists will win undisclosed ‘valuable prizes’.

However, that’s not why I’m going. I go to these kinds of events to meet the other attendees.

A cursory glance through this event’s attendee list suggests that I’ll be one of the oldest people in the room. I know most of the older generation of entrepreneurs and investors, but we are clearly the minority.

The one constant in Budapest is change. I played a small part in Hungary’s last startup boom (1999-2001) but I have very few preconceptions about what and who I’ll discover this Wednesday at BarCamp Budapest. This is a new generation.

I do find one thing remarkable, though. The conference materials are available only in Hungarian, but the two keynote speakers are English-speakers.

I suspect Chris Mattheisen (CEO, Magyar Telekom) will be presenting in English, but he could probably pull it off in Hungarian. Mike Butcher (Editor, TechCrunch Europe) doesn’t speak Hungarian, but I’m sure most of the audience won’t have any trouble following his presentation in English. (They will have to, as no simultaneous translation is on offer.)

What I also find striking is that one of of the startup finalists is obviously reaching beyond the borders of Hungary (Ninimo.com, a website for parents to create and share photo albums of their children). Otthonrol.hu aggregates an online labor force (similar to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk). The founders have international ambitions, but for now the service is focused on the Hungarian market. You can read about the other finalists here, but only if you happen to speak magyarul.

Here, again, I’m ready to abandon any preconceptions.

In the 1999-2001 dotcom boom, investors were looking for deals that could scale beyond Hungary. Ten years later, the Hungarian web audience is larger and possibly more prepared to spend money. Having said that, the Hungarian economy is still relatively small. That much hasn’t changed. Maybe this time around there’s more VC money chasing a limited pool of investor-ready deals.

The best I can do for now is keep my eyes and ears open. I’ll report back later this week with my observations from this year’s BarCamp Budapest.

The concept of online investment brokerage isn’t new, but to the best of my knowledge this model has never been applied specifically in this region. The US market leader appears to be Funding Universe, but I’m more familiar with Angelsoft. The logic behind such sites is obvious: entrepreneurs want money, and investors want dealflow. Success mean building a critical mass of investors and deals, and providing both parties the means to evaluate each other and build trust.

So the question is, will CEE Chips be able to build that critical mass in Central Europe?

It’s still too early to tell. Petkov launched his site in January 2010, and has so far managed to attract about 50 investees. Most of the deals are based in the Balkans, which is not surprising considering that Petkov, himself, is Bulgarian. These deals embrace a wide range of sectors, from agriculture to tourism, including online, real estate and retail. This spread is also not surprising, considering the relatively immaturity of these markets.

I noticed that the criteria for capital-seekers to post their deals are much looser than at, say, Angelsoft. That gives investors less information with which to evaluate these deals, but having said that, these deals are likely to be much less developed, on average, than US investors would expect. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s simply a reality of investing in Eastern and Central Europe, including the Balkans.

As Petkov explained to me in an email, Bulgaria has only been doing business for the last 20 years. A handful of angel investors are active, according to Petkov, but the country still has only one VC. Petkov belongs to a younger generation which in small numbers, across the region, is embracing entrepreneurship. On his LinkedIn profile, Petkov lists his previous job experience as ‘Get-Yes-Man’ for the Start UP Foundation, a group that ‘empowers the entrepreneurial spirit among the young people by organizing national and local entrepreneurship events.’

I’ve been getting to know a similar, younger generation here in Budapest, and will write about that in a future post.

Will CEE Chip be able to extend its reach beyond the Balkans into the rest of Central Europe? That might be difficult, given that the Balkans have a rather negative perception in the rest of the region. Markets like Hungary and the Czech Republic are also more sophisticated – but not in comparison with the US.

The real issue is whether CEE Chips can attract a critical mass of investors. Due to the small size of local markets, many investors here work on a regional basis. They also care less about local perceptions concerning the Balkans. In the end, what they care about is dealflow.

Petkov hopes to grow the CEE Chips network by building an affiliate network with partners in each of 18 Central European markets. The site intends to make money by charging a subscription fee rather than asking for a cut of each deal (which is clearly a trickier proposition). Petkov is also considering starting a consulting business to help companies prepare a business plan and presentation. This might indeed, be his best business model, using his investment network to generate leads for a consulting business.

So what’s the conclusion? I reserve judgement. The pace of change in this region is so relentless that I am continually surprised at what I see. I genuinely hope that CEE Chips becomes a viable platform for regional online investor brokerage. I like Aleks Petkov’s entrepreneurial spirit, and I wish him well.

Money has a way of making things real.

Part of our job, with CITT, has been to share a dream. Centrope designates the border regions of four countries (AT, HU, CZ & SK). The distances are short, but the cultural differences are big. This region has great potential for innovation, but most of this knowledge is locked away in research labs, divided by increasingly abstract national borders.

CITT’s dream is to knock down those borders. Fortunately, we are not the only ones at work on this vision. If CITT and similar projects are successful, the results will be measured in new products, new companies, new jobs and new opportunities.

This is a big dream, and big dreams need money.

The European Commission has already pumped big money into the Centrope dream, financing a wide range of projects, including CITT, in order to create a regional infrastructure for innovation. What’s been missing, up to now, is startup capital. The European Investment Fund’s Jeremie programme aims to fill this gap, providing badly needed startup capital, which has the potential to make the Centrope dream a reality.

Jeremie is now rolling out in Hungary with roughly €160M, distributed in eight new VC funds. By the end of 2010, Jeremie will be active in all four Centrope markets.

This money couldn’t have come at a better time. With the economic downtown, many talented people are now looking for opportunities. (Just about everyone I know had a down year in 2009. This includes me.) In the first quarter of 2010, the CITT project is coming to an end.

As a result, I am now turning my attention (and the focus of nowEurope) increasingly toward Jeremie.

Oddly, very little is being written about Jeremie in the Hungarian media. I’ve only found a handful of articles, mostly talking about the political delays in the Jeremie tender process and listing the newly created funds. Nothing much is being published in English, either.

In the coming days and weeks, I’ll be writing about Jeremie’s potential impact on the local tech scene. I’m now talking to startups and I intend to profile a few of them for nowEurope. I’m also talking to VCs and angel investors. I believe Jeremie could be the catalyst of a new, vibrant technology sector in Hungary and in Central Europe.

If you have a perspective on Jeremie, I’d be interested in talking. Please contact me in the comments, or directly by email (steve AT noweurope DOT com).

I found it interesting because it provides several hints on how you can transfer/uptake technologies!

However, I personally still keep myself away from Facebook, Twitter etc. My biggest doubt is how to separate the different aspects of my real and virtual life from each other. What are these aspects?

1. I work on several projects with interesting people, but basically they don’t care about my sport or hobby activities.
2. I do different sports. In one of my sport activities, most of the team don’t know each others’ business background. It is simply not important, we are there to enjoy the same sport.
3. I’m a member of an online community. We are there for a certain hobby, but don’t care about others’ business or sport activities.

In each of the above mentioned groups there are working communication channels: email, instant messenger, forums.

My biggest dilemma: why should I connect all of these aspects of my life together through a Facebook identity?

It is already disturbing when I see in my IM the following blinking message: ‘Thomas joined to Andrea’s Network”. It is totally irrelevant for me, because I know Thomas, but not Andrea.

How did you solve these questions?

The ICT Europe event looks at ICT business and research in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, focusing on technology transfer, highlighting opportunities and obstacles, and presenting best practices. Although this is an “end of term event”, this conference is the unofficial launch of a new project aiming to build a Centrope-based ICT cluster.

Our keynotes speakers are John Tait, Chief Scientific Officer at IRF, Vienna, and former Professor at the University of Sunderland, Francisco Eduardo De Sousa Webber, the CEO of Matrixware and Chairman of the Executive Board of IRF, and Eugen Antalovsky, CEO of the Vienna based Europaforum platform.

Our CITT team will present their findings, plans and tools. Regional experts will outline the technological and economical features of Centrope. Potential stakeholders and interested parties will have the opportunity personally meet the representatives of the cluster project.

The conference will be hosted by Vienna’s business agency WWFF and welcomes ICT entrepreneurs as well as researchers, opinion makers, strategists and decision makers, people who are involved in national and European ICT strategies, representatives of ICT platforms and the press.

Admission is free, but registration is required. For more information, click on the ad on this page or got to www.centrope-itt.eu.

Centrope is not just a new geographical term. With projects such as CITT which is behind ICT Centrope, and its successors, it is being filled with life. Join!

With the quick search function, you can find easily who is who in R&D in Centrope. As I mentioned in a previous post, the centrope_tt international voucher system awards 50 fortunate companies up to € 5,000 worth of research service, at no cost. This call will be published some time before summer 2010, so stay tuned, Meanwhile, use the R&D Map to located your potential partners, and let me know what you think in the comments!

I confess that TEDx Danubia completely slipped in under my radar. Having said that, I was looking forward to attending TEDx Budapest - which was previously announced, but yet to be scheduled. Confusing? Yes. The events appear to be competitors, but I don’t know the background.

TEDx is a spin-off of the popular TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) event series, organized around the mantra ‘ideas worth spreading.’ Speakers are strictly limited to 18 minutes. TED videos featuring prominent figures including Bill Gates, Al Gore and Gordon Brown are widely linked and commented, helping to spread the TED meme. The TEDx format offers independent event / community organizers a license to hold one event at a time, following the event format guidelines.

Upcoming TEDx events in Central / Eastern Europe include Vienna, Sarajevo, Sofia, Zagreb, Tartu (Estonia), Warsaw, Bucharest and Cluj (Romania). Vlastimil, does this give you any ideas?

TEDx Danubia takes place this coming Wednesday just down the street from my apartment in downtown Budapest. I’ve made a last minute application, so hopefully I can still get a spot. Attendance is limited to 200, and judging by its Facebook page, the event will be well attended. Wish me luck, and if I make it in I’ll post my impressions in a follow up post.

An early example, Cambridge Consultants, had the dual advantage of both attracting highly skilled individuals to the area and creating an environment where other companies – both consultancies and start-ups – were readily spun off.

[A]ny attempts to form a cluster, rather than to leave one to emerge organically, must either attract into the region people who will go on to form new companies, or encourage those already living locally to become entrepreneurs.

Clusters were first established in our region in 2001, following American and Western European examples. With four strategic branch focuses, typically top-down methods, fully publicly sponsored. The first two to three years were promising, then everything slowed down. The feeling of ’getting together’, the willingness to do something was very strong and stirring but real, business-oriented actions were missing. Than came the period of smaller, local-territorial clusters. However, this just meant an increase in quantity, rather than quality. The economy policy was very laissez-faire, resulting in dilution.

This lack of results lead directly lead to a policy which established nationally priority clusters: so-called ‘innovative-accredited clusters’ and regional clusters. The accreditation criteria for the former are very strict, while non-existent for the latter, which are sponsored by regional operative programmes.

Therefore, as a regional economic development supportive organization, we at PBN decided to initiate and promote a transparent system. We are extremely pleased that over 20 clusters from our region have applied, with participation from the Ministry of Economics and the Regional Development Agency. We have elaborated a rating system, which will be finalized with the participants and launched in February 2010.

I do believe that we will be able to step into the next phase of cluster-development, where these vehicles will function as more efficient tools for helping companies. And hopefully, the process from learning from each other rather than from limitedly relevant, far-away examples will improve. And than it will not be about getting grants but about business results.