European Affairs Manager, Regional Innovation Agency, Alsace, France
Jean Jacques Bernardini is the European Affairs Manager at the Regional Innovation Agency of Alsace and the Coordinator of the regional network ‘Europe and Innovation in Alsace.’ He has a PhD in chemistry (University of Strasbourg) and an MBA (EM Lyon). He previously worked in the chemical industry and as a consultant. He has participated in the setting up and the management of more than 200 European programmes and has been an independent expert in innovation programmes.
The European Affairs Department of the ARI Alsace is focused on support for Alsatian companies that would like to integrate or coordinate European R&D programmes to acquire new competences, extend their networks and find financial support to develop innovative products, processes and services. The Agency is involved in several EU-funded programmes. Amongst these, the ERANET LEAD ERA is focused on R&D projects centred on one or more of the six leading markets identified by the European Commission.
Scientific Director, Ecofys and Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Kornelis Blok (1956) studied experimental physics at Utrecht University and received a Ph.D. degree in 1991 for a thesis ‘On the Reduction of Carbon Dioxide Emissions’.
In 1984, he was one of the Founders of Ecofys, where he is now Director of science. Ecofys has grown to be a company of around 300 employees in ten different countries. The company is active in research and consultancy in the areas of energy efficiency improvement and renewable energy.
He has also worked in Utrecht University, at the Department of Science, Technology and Society, since 1983. At present, he is a Professor of Science, Technology and Society. He is also supervising the masters’ programme on Energy Science.
Kornelis has written and co-authored about 80 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, several books and over 200 research reports, conference contributions and other scientific publications. He was a lead author for the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the institution that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2007.
With his company, Kornelis won the Erasmus award for the most innovative company in the Netherlands in 2008. He has also played an important role in the development of international climate policies and has worked in many countries around the globe.
CEO of Wetlands Biosciences Incubator SA and Director of Wetlands Incubator SPRL, Belgium
Christian-Marie Bols has worked as a Researcher in fish nutrition at the Université Catholique de Louvain (1995-2001) and as an Administrator at Mathy by Bols SA (1996-present). He participated actively in the turnaround of the company and became CEO of Wetlands Incubator SPRL (2001-present). He is also currently the President of the Board of Wetlands Biosciences SA.
He originally qualified as a bioengineer in 1995 at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He has subsequently trained in project management and communication (cabinet Lapière & Libert, LLN); in financial management of EU projects (Berkeley Ltd); and in EU project management (Sean McCarthy Hyperion Ltd).
He is a Member of the Board of Plastiwin (local plastic industry cluster) and of Bio.be (federal biotech association). He is also a member of Wagralim and Agrobiopole Wallon (local agrofood industry clusters); Biowin (local heath industry cluster); Union Wallonne des Entreprises (local industrial cluster); Essenscia (federal chemical association); Europabio (European Biotech Association); and Suschem (European technological platform).
Lead Policy Advisor (Innovation, Investment and Growth) at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), United Kingdom
Kirsten Bound is a Lead Policy Advisor at NESTA, an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative. NESTA invests in early-stage companies, informs policy and delivers practical programmes that inspire others to solve the big challenges of the future. Kirsten previously worked on capacity building and policy delivery for Tony Blair’s Africa Governance Initiative in Rwanda and as a Consultant on Investment Climate Reform for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.
Kirsten spent five years as a Senior Researcher for Demos, a leading public policy think-tank, where her work focused on science and innovation in emerging economies. Her publications include Brazil: the Natural Knowledge Economy and India: the uneven innovator, part of ‘The Atlas of Ideas.’
Head of Unit for Support for Innovation, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
Reinhard Büscher is a Head of Unit at the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Ph.D, in Economics. Before joining the European Commission in 1989, he worked for nine years at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Germany. In the European Commission, he has worked in a number of different areas – as a Member of Commissioner Bangemann’s Cabinet, as special Adviser for Industrial Aspects of the Information Society, as Head of Unit for Standardisation, Head of Unit for Industrial Aspects of Electronic Commerce and Head of Unit for E-Business, ICT industries and Services. He has been Head of Unit ‘Support for Industrial Innovation,’ since January 2008.
General Director of St’art S.A. (Investment fund for creative & cultural industries), Belgium
Virginie Civrais studied Economics and has a degree from the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. She has lived in Belgium since 1994 where she first worked in the private sector. She then continued her professional career with various economic and cultural functions in sectors such as theatre, dance, audiovisuals and literature at the Botanique (Cultural Centre of the French-speaking Community in Belgium). She was also General Secretary of the Contemporary Music Festival Ars Musica and then Cultural Director of the association Prométhéa, which focuses on sponsoring. Since October 2010, she has been in charge of a new entity created by the Walloon Region and the French-speaking Community in Belgium - St’art, an investment fund for creative and cultural industries and, more particularly, for small and medium sized enterprises.
General Manager, Flanders District of Creativity, Belgium
Pascal Cools studied law and then international relations at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). In 1997, he started work at the IT and management consultancy, Accenture, known then as Andersen Consulting. As a Project Manager, Pascal was involved in different large-scale change and optimisation projects for clients from both the private and public sectors. After eight years at Accenture, Pascal took the leap, in 2005, and joined the then recently founded Flanders DC, where he has been the General Manager since April 2007.
Flanders DC is a non-profit organisation established and funded by the Flemish Government to make Flanders more creative and entrepreneurial. The organisation sets up projects with businesses, schools, the general public and policy-makers. It also coordinates an international network of Districts of Creativity involving regions from across the world.
Manager, A.T. Kearney GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany
Eva Diedrichs is a Senior Consultant at A.T. Kearney Top Management Consultants and their member of the core team of the European Innovation & R&D Management Practice. She is the Project Manager responsible for IMP³rove, the initiative of the European Commission’s DG Enterprise and Industry. IMP³rove aims to develop better support for SMEs in leveraging innovation management, as a key driver for profitable growth and competitiveness. Eva has comprehensive experience in innovation management consultancy, including innovation strategy development, innovation organisation design, innovation culture development, innovation management assessment and benchmarking. She has supported small, medium and large corporations from different industrial sectors such as aerospace, chemicals, ICT or pharmaceuticals in their projects to increase their competitiveness and innovation management capabilities.
Eva is co-author of the IMP³rove studies on ‘European Innovation Management Landscape’ (Europe INNOVA Paper No 2), ‘Insights on Innovation Management’ (Europe INNOVA Paper No 10), ‘IMP³rove – A Project with Impact: 50 Success Stories’ (Europe INNOVA Paper No 14). She has published several articles on innovation-related topics and other strategic issues. She is also a member of the national standardisation working group on innovation management in Germany and a delegate to the CEN Technical Committee on innovation management.
Head of Unit, Policy Development for Industrial Innovation, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
Peter Dröll is a lawyer by training with a PhD in German constitutional law and European law. After two years as lawyer in a regional law firm specialised on the law of contracts, he joined the European Commission where he held several positions. He started as member of financial control, responsible inter alia for the Environment Institute of the Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra (IT). He continued in the legal unit of the Commission’s Environment Department, with the remit to monitor and ensure transposition and implementation of EU environmental legislation. In the Environment Department he also worked on voluntary “Environmental Agreements”. With the opening of accession negotiations in 1998, he joined the Commission’s negotiation task force as member of the Poland team. In this function, he was coordinator of the environment negotiations with all accession countries.
At the end of the negotiations in 2002, he joined the Cabinet of Commissioner Günter Verheugen and was later on appointed Assistant to the Director General for Enlargement. In 2004, he was appointed as Head of Cabinet of the Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik. In May 2008, he was appointed Head of the Policy Development for Industrial Innovation Unit in the Commission’s Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General.
Head of Structured Finance for Life Sciences, Structured Finance & Advisory, European Investment Bank
Shiva is currently working at the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg, where she is responsible for EIB’s Structured Finance and Advisory as well as New Product Development Activities focusing mainly in the Life Sciences, Renewable Energy and ICT under EIB’s Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF). She has originated and executed a number of flagship RSFF financing operations some of which involving innovative financing structures to SMEs.
Before joining the EIB, Shiva worked at Fitch as Director of High Yield where she was responsible for developing the Agency’s European High Yield rating business with a primary focus in the telecom, media and technology sectors. Prior to Fitch, Shiva worked at J.P. Morgan from 1993-1999, first in New York, where she worked in the M&A Advisory Group, focusing on the Natural Resources sector. In 1996, she was transferred to J.P. Morgan’s Emerging Markets Investment Banking Group in London, where she worked primarily in fixed income origination covering Turkey and CIS.
Shiva graduated from Columbia University (NY) in Economics with Magna cum Laude and holds an Executive MBA from London Business School (LBS). In 2000, Shiva was one the main founding directors of the European High Yield Association (EHYA) and served on its board as its secretary until its merger with the Bond Market Association in 2005, and is now part of the bigger SIFMA/LIBA trade associations. In June 2006, Credit Magazine nominated Shiva as one of the “Top 50 Women in Credit” worldwide, mainly for her contribution to the development of the European High Yield market.
General Manager, BioWin, The Health Cluster of Wallonia, Belgium
France Fannes has a Master’s degree in Medical Biology. She started her career as an academic researcher in virology at ULB, before joining Biolab, a Walloon-based company specialising in biomedical diagnostics. During the ten years she spent at Biolab, she held various positions as Head of R&D, Production and Marketing. Then, in 1996, she set up BIO ART, a Flanders-based company specialised in the development and production of diagnostic kits.
At Bio ART, she gained experience, in particular, in filing patents and negotiating partnership agreements with both small and large-sized biomedical companies. During her time with BIO ART, France was a member of the Steering Committee of FlandersBio and also became an accredited independent expert to the IWT (the Flemish regional agency for innovation).
President of Bundesverband Musikindustrie e. V. & Director for the Creative Industries of the European Capital of Culture Ruhr 2010, Germany
Dieter Gorny studied Music with a focus on bass and composition. In the 1970s, he was a member of the Bochum Symphony and the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra before founding the Rockbüro NRW in 1985. As this was the first project of its kind in Germany, it laid the foundations for communal funding of Rock and Pop, as is happening today. In 1989, he developed the renowned PopKomm music fair, which he continues to support as a member of the Board of Directors.
From 1993 until 2000, Diether was Managing Director of VIVA Fernsehen GmbH and from 2000 onwards, was Chief Executive Officer of VIVA Media AG. After the take-over of VIVA Media AG by Viacom Inc., in 2004, he worked as Executive Vice-President of MTV Networks Europe until 2006. Dieter was awarded the Echo Award in 1992 and the Grimme Award as ‘Mediaman of the Year,’ in 1997.
Since 2000, Dieter has been a member of the Steering Committee of the German Music Council. In 2007, he was appointed Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Filmstiftung NRW and of Initiative Musik, a joint initiative of the Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media, GEMA, GVL and the German Music Council which aims to promote the German music industry. In December of 2009, he was appointed President of the European Music Council (EMO).
After several teaching assignments at the music conservatories including Cologne, Düsseldorf and Hamburg, Diether was appointed Professor of Culture and Media Studies at the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf, in 2005.
Dieter was born in Soest/Westphalia, in 1953. He now lives in Essen-Werden, Germany.
CEO, Co-founder ADJUGO SA/NV, Belgium; Green-ICT and Sustainability Consultant, Belgium
Thierry Holoffe is the CEO and Co-founder of ADJUGO, a Belgian company specialising in business-IT alignment, IT processes improvement and Green-ICT strategy. Thierry has participated in the development of the Green-IT strategy, governance and maturity (SGM) framework. This comprehensive methodology helps companies to green their IT environments and use ICT as an enabler for a low-carbon economy.
Thierry has a technical background and his keen sense of technical evolution and customer requirements has made him a very successful entrepreneur in several ventures. Thierry has been CEO of ATOS Belux and IT-related companies and has been engaged in multiple international transformational projects. Since 2008, he has helped public and private organisations to define their Green-ICT strategies and governance.
President, Infopôle - ICT Cluster, Belgium
Benoît Hucq has been active in different positions in ICT companies for more than 25 years. His current position is Executive Director of Océ Software in Namur, Belgium. This company provides products, solutions and services in document management worldwide via the Océ group, as well as directly to the European market.
For the last four years, Benoît has participated, as a President of the Infopôle, in the promotion of the local Belgian ICT sector, especially in terms of networking, clustering and innovation. The Infopôle Cluster TIC is a non-profit organisation which is mainly sponsored by the region of Wallonia. The companies, research centres and other ICT actors and members of this organisation, are engaged in numerous activities and services aiming to stimulate their businesses, their partnerships and their innovations.
Policy Officer, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Support for Industrial Innovation, European Commission
Mette Koefoed Quinn works in the Support for Industrial Innovation Unit of the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, where she has had a number of years’ experience as a Policy Officer. She is currently responsible for innovation in services including, in particular, strategic policy development.
She is the Coordinator of the European Knowledge Intensive Services Innovation Platform, which is supported by the Europe INNOVA initiative, and is also concerned with transnational policy development activities in the field of services innovation under the PRO INNO Europe® initiative.S
he has worked on broader innovation policy development and with innovation policy benchmarking, as a Project Officer for the INNO-Policy TrendChart and the INNO-Views expert workshop series. She developed the first phase of the PRO INNO Europe® initiative, which was the implementation of the Open Method of Coordination in the field of innovation, and she has also coordinated the FP6 Research and Innovation work programme.
Previously, Mette worked for the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and also spent some years at the Danish Permanent Representation to NATO. She has a background in economics.
Managing Director, Greenovate! Europe EEIG, Belgium
Katharina Krell is the Managing Director of Greenovate! Europe, which is a Brussels-based, EU-wide expert network supporting environmental innovation. Katharina has been instrumental in developing the business concept for, and initiating the creation of, this young expert group.
From 2004 to March 2008, she was the Secretary-General of the EUREC Agency, a European Group of 47 renewable energy research centres. She developed the support to innovation and knowledge transfer from renewable energy research to the market, as a new strategic business area for EUREC and led successful projects in this field.
From 2000-2002, she worked for the German Development Service (GTZ/CIM) in China, as a seconded expert on renewable energy electrification strategies.
Katharina is German and holds a BA in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, as well as an MBA from United Business Institutes in Brussels.
Director, Industrial Innovation and Mobility Industries, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
Georgette Lalis is a Director in the European Commission’s Directorate General of Enterprise and Industry (Directorate D). Her responsibilities include industrial innovation and the automotive, defence, aerospace and maritime industries.
She joined the European Commission in 1981 as a junior official and prior to her present job, she held several managerial and senior positions in different sectors of the institution. She has been a member of Commissioner Papandreou’s Cabinet (1989-1992), as well as Director for Maritime Transport (1998-2001).
Georgette studied law at the Universities of Athens and Strasbourg.
President, creativ wirtschaft austria, Austria
Gertraud Leimüller has been President of the Austrian creative industries platform creativ wirtschaft austria since 2006. This organisation monitors the development of the creative industries in Austria through studies, raises awareness of the importance of the sector and establishes networks between creative entrepreneurs.
In her ‘bread-winning’ role, Gertraud is an innovation expert and runs winnovation, an international research and consultancy firm based in Vienna specialising in open and distributed innovation methods. In 2010, she became a member of the EU Expert Panel on Services Innovation, which advises the European Commission on services innovation issues.
Gertraud studied at Harvard University, where she earned a Masters Degree in Public Administration, at MIT and at the University of Vienna, where she obtained a PhD in Science.
Business Development Director, Grundfos A/S, Denmark
Marianna Lubanski has just started her new position as Business Development Director in Grundfos A/S, one of the world’s leading pump manufacturers. Marianna is part of a new vision ‘the Innovation Intent’ which aims at identifying future business areas for Grundfos.
Prior to joining Grundfos, Marianna was the Executive Director of Innovation Center Denmark, in Palo Alto, California (2008-2010). The Innovation Center, which was established by the Danish government in 2006, is a bridgehead into Silicon Valley for Danish researchers and entrepreneurs. Marianna’s main focus is to develop and implement innovative projects that can create new windows of opportunity in the US for innovative Danish solutions and technologies.
Prior to joining the Innovation Center, Marianna had a long track record of management and front end innovation, most recently as Development Director at Mandag Morgen, a Danish think-tank. At Mandag Morgen, Marianna was the head of the Danish Innovation Council, and amongst others things, headed the so-called ‘Billion Dollar Industries Partnership Programme,’ in which Danish companies and researchers jointly search for new innovative solutions to today´s challenges in health, climate, environment and education.
Marianna was part of two start-ups before that, and has had her own consultancy company for 7 years. She has working experience all over the world, including in Eastern Europe, Central America, Africa and the US. Marianna received her MBA from Copenhagen Business School in 1991.
Professor, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Benoit Macq is currently a Professor in the Telecommunications Laboratory at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), and is also Vice-Rector of the University. He produced his doctoral thesis on perceptual coding for digital TV under the supervision of Prof. Paul Delogne at UCL.
He completed his military service in 1984-1985 at the Royal Military School of Belgium where he worked on Laser interferometer measurements. He then joined the Tractebel company, Brussels in 1985 to focus on networks-planning. He was a Researcher at Philips Research in 1990 and 1991 and has been a Senior Researcher for the Belgian NSF.
Benoit has been a Visiting Scientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. He has been a Scientific Visitor at MIT and Visiting Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, ENST-Paris, France as well as at the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France. Benoit is teaching, and conducting his research image processing for visual communications.
Benoit has been Guest Editor for the IEEE Proceedings and for the Signal Processing Journal and is a member of the programme committee of several IEEE and SPIE conferences. He was Co-Technical Chair of the IEEE Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME02), a member of the board of EUSIPCO2002 and ICPR2002, Plenary Chairman for ICASSP06, and has participated in many other conferences. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the IEEE Technical Committee IMDSP (Image and Multidimensional Signal Processing) and Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia. He is General Chair of the ICIP2011 conference which will be held in Brussels, Belgium.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economy, SMEs, Foreign Trade and New Technologies of the Walloon Regional Government and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Higher Education of the French Community of Belgium
Jean-Claude Marcourt is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economy, SMEs, Foreign Trade and New Technologies of the Walloon Regional Government and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Higher Education of the French Community of Belgium. He is also President of the Competiveness Council - Industry Sector.
In Wallonia, he has initiated a clusters’ policy and poles of competitiveness to boost innovation. Also, he recently proposed a plan entitled CREATIVE WALLONIA, to promote more innovation in Wallonia. Between 2004 and 2009, he held the position of Minister for Economy, Employment, Foreign Trade and Heritage in the Walloon Regional Government.
Jean-Claude is a City Councillor of Liège and he has a Doctorate in Law from the University of Liège, obtained in 1979.
Group Innovation Director, LogicaCMG, the Netherlands
Geleyn Meijer is a partner of Logica and operated as its Strategy and Innovation Director. Since 2003, he has pioneered Logica’s innovation policy and R&D project involvement. In 2005, he became the Group Innovation Director for Logica, coordinating the activities across the group and ensuring Logica’s active participation in strategic business developments with clients and alliance partners. He masterminded embedded innovation as an innovation process for ICT services companies.
He is advisor to the Dutch ICT Innovation Council, stimulating the creativity in services development among businesses and in academia. Together with leading Dutch media companies, SME’s and universities, he launched the ICT Innovation Platform for the Creative industry.
Geleyn is the Initiator and a Board Member of the Services Innovation Programme for the Creative and Financial Sector. This programme was launched in 2009 to stimulate the take-up of the ICT-led services industry. He was also Co-Director of the Virtual Laboratory for eScience (VL-e) project.
Head of EU Programmes and International Initiatives, FILAS S.p.A, Rome, Italy
Michela Michilli is the Head of the ‘EU Programmes and International Initiatives’ Unit in Filas, the Financial Development Agency for economic development and technological innovation of the Lazio Region.
She is an expert in economics, finance and international markets, and since 1996 she has gained great experience in market analysis for ICT and media, the creative industries and the cultural heritage sectors, through collaborating, with or leading, international projects.
At the moment she is the Coordinator of the European project ImMediaTe (Improving the value of Digital Media and Creative Industries through Innovative Business Models and Services), an EU CIP co-funded project in support of the digital media and creative industries in Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Malta. Within ImMediaTe, Michela has designed and implemented innovative consultancy, coaching and business services to support European companies in their investment readiness and access to finance and to international markets (Europe and South-East Asia).
Michela is also in charge of the regional clusters of creative industries, aerospace and bioscience in Lazio Region and of their relationships with Europe and South East countries. She also is Chairperson of the Enterprise Europe Network Creative industry Sector Group and a member of the Think Tank on Creative industry and EBAN.
Consultant, Technopolis Group, Belgium
Michal Miedzinski is a Coordinator of the Eco-Innovation Observatory and represents the Technopolis Group. He has over eight years of experience in the analysis and evaluation of RTDI and regional development policies and strategies. His main interest and professional expertise is in eco-innovation and resource use issues, notably in the area of science, technology and innovation.
Michal has been involved in a number of projects and studies commissioned by the European Commission and OECD, and by the regional authorities in many EU countries. Before joining Technopolis, he worked as an Expert for European regional networks focused on innovation strategy and policy. Michal is also a member of the Expert Committee of the World Resource Forum held biannually in Davos.
Michal holds a Masters degree in Regional Economic Planning from Warsaw University and Master of Arts in European Public Affairs from the University of Maastricht and EIPA. He is currently working on his PhD at the University of Manchester which is focusing on evaluating the effects of foresight and other long-term visioning and planning exercises.
Project Manager for Innovation Festival Milano, Alintec scarl, Italy
Giorgio Monaci has a Degree in Geography obtained in Italy, and a D.E.A. in Policy Studies gained in France.
He is responsible for the project ‘Innovation Festival Milano’ in Alintec scarl. He has had a number of years of research experience in economic development and also in the field of high-level educational structures.
He was the Director of the Economic and Innovation Department of Provincia di Milano, Consultant of the Italian National Government on social policies, Project Leader of several EU Projects in the field of innovation and creative industries. He is also a Member of the Board of many Development Agencies, BICs and TT centres.
Giorgio is the author of several papers and academic books on innovation, local and urban development and high-level educational systems.
Chief of Staff - Creativity, Innovation, New Technologies and ICT, Cabinet of Minister Marcourt, Region of Wallonia, Belgium
Henri Monceau is a Senior Political Advisor. He is currently serving as Chief of Staff of the Vice-President of Wallonia-Brussels, Minister for Economy, Foreign Trade and Higher Education. Being in charge of creativity, innovation, new technologies and ICT, he coordinates the Creative Wallonia framework programme.
Former Programme Director for transnational governance and deliberative democracy in the Jacques Delors think-tank, Notre Europe (2004-2009), and former Chief of Staff of the Belgian Vice-Prime Minister (1999-2003), Henri had previously developed Life-Long Learning solutions in the Socrates Programme of the EU (1995-1999) and, prior to that, was a Policy Officer in a European platform of NGOs.
As a consultant, he also advises public authorities and private companies in the field of knowledge management, change strategies and creative development.
Senior Consultant, TECHNOFI, France
Vincent Morfouace is a Senior Consultant with Technofi s.a., a private company specialising in innovation management and financing. Within Technofi, he coordinated a support action for SME technology innovation in the renewable energy sector that involved access to FP6-7 funds and the success of this action exceeded expectations. Now, he coordinates the KIS-PIMS project co-funded by DG Enterprise and Industry, which supports SME innovation in services in the renewable energy sector. He has also led work packages under several other FP6 and FP7 contracts in the manufacturing sector, such as CleanProd and Innotex FP6.
Before joining Technofi, in 2004, he worked in the automotive industry for eight years as a Project Manager and Team Leader of an industrial intelligence unit dealing with IP management, benchmarking and product cost kill. Vincent holds an Engineering Degree in Transport Systems with an emphasis on aerospace from ESTACA, in Levallois-Perret, France, together with a pre-PhD Academic Degree ‘D.E.A.’ in energy conversion from the Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris.
Managing director, inno TSD and European Cluster Alliance Secretariat, France
Marc Pattinson is the Managing Director of inno TSD, which is based in Sophia Antipolis, in France. It specialises in the development and management of regional development and innovation strategies. Marc studied in the UK at the London School of Economics, where he obtained a Masters in economics and urban and regional planning.
He is currently responsible for the Secretariat’s services and the animation team of the European Cluster Alliance. This work is undertaken as part of the TACTICS INNO-Net project funded by DG Enterprise Industry. The ECA Secretariat’s activities include the preparation of cluster policy workshops, testing and launching transnational cluster cooperation initiatives and helping SMEs to participate in innovation and technology collaboration projects. He is also responsible for overseeing the management of four innovation and business incubation centres run by inno TSD on behalf of different French local authorities.
Marc previously worked as part of the INNO Learning Platform team and, between 2008 and 2010, he worked alongside a number of cluster-oriented projects, such as CLUNET, INNET, BSR and CEE helping with the development of new policy cooperation tools.
Founder and Managing Partner, Capricorn Venture Partners NV, Belgium
Jos B. Peeters is a Founder and Managing Partner of Capricorn Venture Partners NV, a Belgian based pan-European manager of venture capital funds seeking to invest in technology-based growth companies. Currently, Capricorn Venture Partners is investing out of its Capricorn Cleantech Fund, whilst raising a Capricorn Health-tech Fund. Jos is regarded as one of the pioneers of the European venture capital industry, having been active in this area since 1985. He co-founded, and became Chairman of, Quest for Growth NV, an Investment Company quoted on the Brussels Stock Exchange, which specialises in investing in quoted and later stage, unquoted, technology- based growth companies.
Jos was the Chairman of the Working Group which founded the European Association of Securities Dealers (EASD) and developed the concept of EASDAQ. In partnership with Citadel and Börse Berlin, the company is re-launching as Equiduct, a regulated market for secondary trading in Europe. Jos continues to serve as a Board Member of Easdaq NV, the holding company.
Jos has a PhD in Physics from the University of Leuven. He was Co-founder and first Chairman of the Belgian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (BVA). He has been a member of the Board, and in 1989/1990 he was Chairman, of the European Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (EVCA). He is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the London Business School, a Director of EFER and the Chairman of Science@Leuven, the alumni association of the sciences students of the University of Leuven.
Director of Confindustria Servizi Innovativi e Tecnologici, Italy
Luigi Perissich has a Degree in Economics and a Masters’ Degree in Business Administration and Management from the New York University. He is the General Director of Confindustria Servizi Innovativi e Tecnologici, which is a member of Confindustria, the Confederation of Italian Industry.
This Federation represents 17.000 companies in the following sectors: Satellite Applications; Marketing and Communications; Consultancy; Digital Contents; e-Media; Education and Training; Engineering; Real Estate; Internet; Certification; Radio and TV; Research and Surveys; Technological and Professional Services; Information Technology; and Telecommunications.
Before that Luigi was the Director of Fita, which is the Federation of Italian Advanced Services Industries and a member of Confindustria, the Executive Director of EIAS SA in Brussels, the General Director of CONFITARMA which is the Italian Ship-owners Association and Head of European Affairs in Federlegno, which is the Italian Federation of Wood and Furniture Industries.
CEO, 22@Barcelona, Spain
Josep Miquel Piqué is the CEO of 22@Barcelona, the Innovation District of Barcelona. He has a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from La Salle and UPC and a MBA from ESADE. He also has diplomas from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of California-Berkeley and the Universitat Ramon Llull.
He is a disciple of Professor Henry Etzkowitz (Stanford University), Co-founder of the Triple Helix and Professor Jerry Engel (Lester Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UC-Berkeley). He is the President of XPCAT (Catalan Network of Science Parks) and the Vice-President of APTE (Spanish Network of Science Parks).
During his long professional experience in university management, Josep has promoted and led Masters Programmes on Innovation, Technology Transfer Centres, University Incubators and Science and Technology Parks.
He has published several papers and participated in congresses on Innovation Systems and Entrepreneurship. He has taken part in several international forums in Europe, the Americas and Asia.
The central focus of his activity is the promotion of a Knowledge-based Economy and Society in order to consolidate 22@Barcelona as a world innovation node.
Managing Director, Union Wallonne des Entreprises, Belgium
Born in 1952, Vincent Reuter holds a Degree in Law. He began his career in 1987, as a Legal Advisor with Kemira Agro, an international fertilisers group, and then became Human Resources Manager of Kemira Agro Benelux’s Belgian subsidiaries. Five years later, he took the post of Director of Materials Coordination Benelux and, in 1994, was appointed as Managing Director of Kemira S.A. in Wavre. From 1999 till 2002, he served as Legal Advisor, Human Resources Manager and Energy Manager for Kemira Agro, in Belgium.
Today, Vincent holds several positions including: Managing Director of the UWE (Walloon Federation of Enterprises); Chairman of the Board of Office National du Ducroire (the Belgian public credit insurer); Member of the Board of Directors of the FEB (Federation of Belgian Enterprises); and Vice- President of CESRW (the Economic and Social Council of the Walloon Region).
Project Manager, Organisation European Water Partnership / Netherlands Water Partnership, the Netherlands
During the last four years, Harro Riedstra has built up professional experience in a broad range of water-related issues, working as a Project Officer for the Netherlands Water Partnership and, mainly, as Project Coordinator and Project Manager for the European Water Partnership.
Having joined the EWP in September 2006, Harro focused on building up the organisation and on the achievement of a strong position on water in Europe. With the growth of the EWP, and on becoming a Project Manager in August 2007, he became responsible for the European Regional Coordination of the fifth World Water Forum, in Istanbul, which took place on 16-22 March 2009. Apart from becoming Coordinator of the European Regional Process, in December 2008, he undertook responsibility for setting up a European Dialogue on Climate Change, Adaptation and Water. From spring 2009 onwards, within the EWP, Harro focused on setting up a number of project proposals under the EU support programmes LIFE+, FP7 and CIP, amongst which was the INNOWATER project that he has been coordinating from 1 February 2010.
As Project Officer for the Netherlands Water Partnership, Harro has been responsible for the coordination of a number of projects and case studies. Harro has a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Master of Arts in International Relations, both from the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands.
Policy Officer, Policy Development for Industrial Innovation, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
Keith Sequeira is currently in the Industrial Innovation Policy Development Unit of DG Enterprise and Industry, where he works on the preparation of the Innovation Union initiative, innovation indicators and the public procurement of innovation. He has an initial degree in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a D.Phil in Innovation Studies from the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University.
Before joining the European Commission, Keith worked for a number of years in the UK Department of Trade and Industry in the areas of biotechnology SMEs, performance monitoring, international trade and international research and innovation strategy. He has also worked on secondment to a private sector company providing business development and commercial advice to public bodies, and to DG Research on the preparation and development of the 7th Research Framework Programme.
Member of The European Economic and Social Committee
Madi Sharma is a business woman whose various entrepreneurial activities have enabled her to develop a unique understanding and experience of success in the business world. She currently runs four businesses, and has also been appointed to sit on the European Economic and Social Committee, in Brussels.
She runs the Madi Group, of private sector and not-for-profit companies with a philosophy of creating innovative ideas tailored to local action which can achieve global impacts beneficial to society. The Group includes an import/export company, ‘the ethnic trail…’ which actively creates entrepreneurs across Europe; ‘Madi Magnesium’ a successful consultancy which supports SMEs, organisations and governments in overcoming their challenges; and a business brokerage company ‘I3,’ which links global corporate companies and governments.
Additionally ‘the ethnic trail…’ has a not-for-profit education arm ‘Extraordinary Education,’ which has created a unique enterprise model for schools, where the students keep the profits and participate in a live global business. Profits made by the company support a child’s education in India. Madi’s vision is to use the profits she makes to establish a school for entrepreneurs in India.
Her innovative and motivational approach to business has brought her recognition as Asian Woman of Achievement and the UK’s Best Boss. As well as an NED role for ITV plc, she is actively involved in a variety of charities, including the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards on the Women in Business panel. Madi is much sought after as an international speaker and advisor to organisations globally at conferences on education, entrepreneurship and, in particular, on female development and empowerment.
Broadcast Journalist
Cathy Smith is a former Brussels-based correspondent for both the BBC and GMTV and was a main presenter of Channel Four News in the UK. She is a founding partner of the communications company SpeakEasy, which is located in Brussels. Cathy specialises in media training, presentation training and conference moderating for a wide range of international clients.
She also produces video news releases for the European Commission and presents European Journal, a weekly magazine programme for Deutsche Welle TV.
Senior Consultant, KEA European Affairs, Belgium
Yolanda a Senior Consultant with KEA European Affairs - a Brussels-based strategic consultancy recognised in the European Union for its leading expertise on the creative industries and the cultural sector. She specialises in copyright and trade and development issues affecting the cultural and creative industries.
Prior to joining KEA she worked for more than ten years for the music industry in Brussels (IFPI) focusing on the improvement of market access for record companies around the globe. She also worked for the Spanish Employers’ Confederation (CEOE) in Madrid. Yolanda set up their Open Line programme to identify obstacles that Spanish companies continue to face in the EU Internal Market and ran a number of business cooperation projects, such as the Al-Invest projects.
She started her career as the Deputy Secretary General of the European Retail Trade Association, in Brussels, (Eurocommerce). She graduated in law from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, has a Masters in European Law from the College of Europe in Bruges, as well as a Masters in copyright from King´s College in London.
Chief Economist, Director of the Department of Research and Economic Analyses at the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan, Poland
Małgorzata Starczewska-Krzysztoszek has a PhD in Economics and is Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics of Warsaw University. Małgorzata is a Chief Economist, and Director of the Department of Research and Economic Analyses at the Polish Confederation of Private Employers, Lewiatan and a member of the Economic Council at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. She is Chairwomen of the SMEs’ Working Group at the Coordinating Committee of National Strategic Reference Framework 2007-2013 and a member of the Monitoring Committee of the Innovative Economy Programme.
She specialises in the field of corporate finance. Małgorzata’s research interests cover the areas of conditions for the development of enterprises, barriers to entrepreneurship, SME sector development and innovation and the role of the financial markets in SME development.
Member of Executive Board of Baltic Innovation Agency, Estonia
Rene Tõnnisson is a member of the executive board of the Baltic Innovation Agency. He has more than 10 years’ experience in innovation management and business development. He has been a member of the executive boards of Tartu Science Park, Tartu Biotechnology Park, the Institute of Baltic Studies and Connect Estonia.
Rene has also been responsible for a wide range of innovation, technology and business-related activities, serving as a the Coordinator for the Estonian Innovation Relay Centre (IRC), and a member of the European Cluster Policy Group (ECPG), the Organisation for Promotion of Energy Technologies (OPET) Estonia and Tartu Regional Innovation Strategy projects.
Rene’s main areas of expertise include international technology transfer, regional innovation systems and strategies, foresight, cluster development and internationalisation. Since 1996, he has also lectured at the University of Tartu, teaching courses on EU policies and institutions, as well as on EU programmes and project management. Rene has a Masters degree in Public Administration and Policy from University of Tartu, Estonia and Certificat d’Etudes Politiques from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Strasbourg (Sciences Po), Université de Robert Schuman.
Director, The Hub Brussels, Belgium
Simon Ulvund is the Director of the Hub in Brussels and a member of the international Hub Council. In the Hub, Simon’s efforts go into creating the conditions for social entrepreneurs and innovators to attain their potential, through projects involving complementary currency, social return on investment and community and by building a global network of social entrepreneurs.
Prior to his time at the Hub, Simon worked as a research analyst for OTA Global, covering financial markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is also a Board Member of Educat, a Euro/African entrepreneurship education. Simon’s was educated at the Kaospilot School for Social Innovation and Creative Business Design, in Aarhus, Denmark.
General Manager, Cisco Belgium & Luxembourg, Belgium
Pol Vanbiervliet has been the head of the Belgian and Luxembourg office of Cisco since October 2005. As General Manager, he is responsible for the local team and for an extensive network of partners that, together, commercialise innovative communications and network solutions. He also presides over the local Management Board, as Cisco Belgium is hosting a TAC and over a number of other functions with a total headcount of around 1000 Cisco employees.
Pol can boast about many years’ experience in the Belgian ICT sector. He worked successively at Burroughs, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq. Before he started working at Cisco, he was Head of Business Solutions at Mobistar. At both Compaq and Mobistar, he was noticed for the successful expansion of the Belgian sales and marketing organisations.
At Mobistar, he also played a key role as a member of the Management Committee. Pol graduated from the University of Ghent in economic sciences and studied management training at INSEAD. Pol was born in 1951 and lives in Gent.
Managing Director, European BIC Network (EBN)
Since 1999, Philippe Vanrie has been the CEO of EBN, the leading pan-European Network bringing together from across Europe and beyond, more than 200 accredited Business & Innovation Centres (BICs), Innovation-based Incubators and Entrepreneurship Centres.
Philippe was instrumental in developing this unique community, gathering thousands of smart innovators and entrepreneurs. A recognised expert and experienced speaker on innovation and incubation, Philippe has developed strong relationship, and several collaborative projects, with the European Commission (EC), the European Space Agency (ESA) and a number of national and regional governmental agencies.
Philippe graduated from the Gembloux Agronomic Engineering University, and then in Innovation Management from the University of Louvain. He started his career at the University of Brussels (ULB) and then joined the first European EC-BIC (Business and Innovation Centre) in Liège. Afterwards, he joined the private sector where he held senior Marketing and Business Development responsibilities within several SMEs.
Over the last couple of years, Philippe has initiated and conducted a number of partnerships between EBN small business incubation centres and industry leaders such as BT, Procter & Gamble, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Auchan. He has also orchestrated pilot-schemes in the field of academic and industrial spin-off, clustering, international business co-operation, local economic development and technology transfer.
Philippe has served as an Advisory Board Member of the H-P Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute (MEA-I), the European Centre for Innovation in Geo-spatial and Location-Based Service, the European Region Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN), the International Network for SMEs (INSME) and the Europa InterCluster Network. In 2010, he chaired the Jury of the “young European hopes of innovation".
Clustermanager Sustainability, Amsterdam Innovation Motor, the Netherlands
lse van den Breemer is a Clustermanager in CleanTech. She has a degree in Public Administration and afterwards worked for the City of Amsterdam, mostly on spatial planning and participation by citizens. For the last two years, Ilse has been working for the public-private foundation called the Amsterdam Innovation Motor.
There she has been developing and deploying projects on sustainability within the cluster of AIM to Sustain – and thus also coordinating the WasteKIT project and participating in the EcoCluP project.
Chief Executive, Creative Industries Development Agency (CIDA), United Kingdom
Anamaria Wills has over 30 years’ experience of working in the creative and digital sector. She founded CIDA in January 2000 and since then, it has supported the development of over 3,000 highly successful creative enterprises, both in the UK and abroad. Anamaria also instigated CIDA’s 2008 formal alliance with EDG Inc, set up by Dr Herman Gyr and Laszlo Gyorffy of Silicon Valley.
This alliance has played a critical role in the ECCE Innovation project, successfully bringing together creative practitioners from Europe to work with innovation specialists from America, reciprocally transferring knowledge and expertise and genuinely ‘walking the talk’ of the ECCE project.
At international level, Anamaria works with transnational partnerships aimed at strengthening innovation in the creative economy. She led on CIDA’s major Competency and Qualifications Framework programme for the Singapore Workforce Development Agency.
This led to her co-designing and delivering the Professional Diploma in Creative Entrepreneurship at the National University of Singapore with her colleague, and CIDA Associate, Lee Corner. Anamaria has worked with creative entrepreneurs in both developed and emerging economies from Albania to Zimbabwe and continues to develop new projects and partnerships across the world.
She is a frequent guest speaker on innovation and the knowledge economy at international seminars and conferences. In November 2009, she was invited to address the audience of international Presidents and Prime Ministers at the Commonwealth Business Conference in Trinidad on the topic of Creativity and Innovation for Economic Impact.
Innovation Manager, Chemistry Innovation Ltd, United Kingdom
Howard Whitby is a synthetic organic chemist by training and holds a PhD from Durham University, United Kingdom. He has over 15 years R&D and commercial experience in a variety of technical and management roles in the speciality chemical and consumer products industry sectors.
Previously an R&D Director within Honeywell’s Consumer Products Group and a Technical Consultant on technologies relevant to formulated products, Howard has developed particular expertise in innovation, product development and project management.
Howard joined Chemistry Innovation Ltd in October 2009 in the role of Innovation Manager. He is currently responsible for overall project management of the BIOCHEM project.
Director-General, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
After being acting Director General from September till November 2005, Heinz Zourek has been appointed Director General in DG Enterprise and Industry on 9 November 2005. From May 2001 till August 2005 he has been Deputy Director-General in DG Enterprise and Industry. He has been in charge of the Directorates: Regulatory policy, Innovation policy, Promotion of SMEs’ competitiveness and Aerospace, security, defence and equipment.
From September 1995 to April 2001 he was Deputy Director-General of the Internal Market DG. His main responsibilities were free movement of goods and services, public procurement, regulated professions, industrial and intellectual property rights and postal services. He also was in charge of the infringement procedures and parliamentary affairs as horizontal task for the whole DG.
From 1993 to 1995 Heinz Zourek was a member of the College of the EFTA Surveillance Authority created by the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). His portfolio contained state aids and monopolies, public procurement and free movement of persons. Between 1990 and 1993 he worked for the Confederation of Austrian Trade Unions as Director of the Economic Policy Department.
Mr Zourek started his professional life in the Chamber of Labour in Vienna where he became Director of the department for “External Trade and European Integration”. He was born in December 1950 in Vienna and qualified as an economist at Vienna University.
