This presentation was held by Olivier De Cock during the FITT conference „ICT Innovations: Research > Business > Society“ on 10 May 2011 in Brussels. www.fitt-for-innovation.eu

1. ICT INNOVATIONS: Research > Business > Society
Wrap-up
FITT
– Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer –
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

2. The FITT conference in brief
 ½ Day: Introductory Session, 2 Panel Sessions, 1 Panel Discussion,
Wrap-up Session
 20 Speakers, 90 Participants
 Recommendations from the FITT Position Paper: to bear in mind the
fundamental objectives of technology transfer
 contribute to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth
 tackle societal challenges like climate change, energy, health, ageing
 establish an open innovation approach to technology transfer capacity
building  that is what FITT is about
2 | 10 May/2011 FITT conference: Wrap-up Session

3. Panel I: From Ideas to Products: The
Business Model Challenge
Keywords: Collaboration, Culture, Co-design
 Collaboration as win-win strategy, where revenue sharing and control
is key (Pieter Ballon)
 Innovative business models improve flexible collaboration (Nick De
Mey)
 Introduce entrepreneurship culture within research environment by
doing market driven and output oriented research (Prof. Thomas
Baaken)
 Mix researchers and MBA people to let innovation happen (Dr. Carolina
Garcia Rizo)
 Co-design is better than classical business plans in solving
bottlenecks that usually stop innovative ideas of reaching the market
(Dr. Mario Cameron)
 Choose a good license and economic model: depends on the domain
and on the market (Claude Gomez)
3 | 10 May/2011 FITT conference: Wrap-up Session

4. Panel II: How FITT is Europe for the
Innovation Challenge? (I)
Keywords: Collaboration, Community Building, Competent People
 There is no one size fits all model, but proof of concept, governance
and funding mechanisms and entrepreneurship education
(management skills) are key for success (Prof. Bruno Van Pottelsberghe)
 Venture capital has a high impact on innovation. Collaboration
between public and private funds improves the impact even more and
promotes investment readiness (Yannis Pierrakis)
 Potential impact of innovative procurement: “spend wisely” (Dr. Anthon
Theuma)
 Promote ICT living labs for user driven innovation and cut the red tape
for SMEs to join collaborative research (Alain Bravo)
 Investor readiness needs to be improved: KIS SMEs and entrepreneurs
need “to understand how investors think” (David Moir)
4 | 10 May/2011 FITT conference: Wrap-up Session

5. Panel II: How FITT is Europe for the
Innovation Challenge? (II)
 Needed: Web 2.0 approach and brokerage events for bringing all
shareholders together: researchers, technology transfer experts,
investors, entrepreneurs (Achieve More, ICT-VentureGate, FITT)
 Needed: Train-the-trainer  tackle skills mismatch (e-skills, bizz skills),
improve investment readiness of SMEs (Dr. Anton Theuma, David Moir)
5 | 10 May/2011 FITT conference: Wrap-up Session

6. FITT is dead, long live FITT
 Key challenges for the European Technology Transfer scene have
been addressed during the FITT conference
 The FITT Toolbox is useful to build a common understanding and
approach of this challenges and to build a community of experts in
Technology Transfer  solve daily problems of TT and hence their
clients struggling in the market
 This is the end of the FITT project, but FITT will keep on going: as a
living Toolbox, as a community of practice “ICT TechTransfer”
(LinkedIn), as a platform for professionalizing TT throughout Europe,
as a step-up for an ICT ecosystem where ICT entrepreneurs can get
real incubation and venturing support in a one-stop-shop logic
 Next step will be to build this ecosystem in Europe and to cooperate
more closely with existing projects like ICT-VentureGate and Achieve
More
6 | 10 May/2011 FITT conference: Wrap-up Session

7. Thank You
Thank you to:
 All Speakers for their valuable contribution
 The Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg as host of the
conference
 All Participants for their active contribution
Don’t forget to:
 Please fill in the feedback form
And finally:
 Please join us for dinner and keep on the networking
7 | 10 May/2011 FITT conference: Wrap-up Session