An Italian foundation will lead the development of the European Silicon Valley

The Italian Mind the Bridge Foundation (headquartered in San Francisco) has been chosen by the EC to lead a project aimed at helping start-ups to reach global maturity

European start-ups will soon reach global awareness: this is the hope of the Old Continent, something we cannot renounce to. To this end, the European Commission has decided to import the “Silicon Valley model”: tech leaders, global corporations, universities and institutions have joined their efforts to nurture Europe’s start-ups into global companies.

The EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, launched the plan during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The accelerator, called Start-Up Europe Partnership, will help start-ups break through their national glass ceiling into global maturity. Mind the Bridge Foundation, a non-profit corporation, and Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, will lead its secretariat. Mind the Bridge is headquartered in San Francisco: founded in 2007 by the Italian Marco Marinucci, it is led by the founder and by Alberto Onetti, President of the Foundation. The Foundation initially aimed to help Italian start-ups in creating contacts with the Silicon Valley enterprises: they will have to do the same at a European level now.

The European Commission has also launched a new think-tank – the European Digital Forum, which will give entrepreneurs a voice in policy debates, and aims to become Europe’s leading policy network on digital entrepreneurship. It will also produce an annual Digital Economy Index to measure how friendly Europe is to the mind-set required to succeed in the digital era.

Together with Mind the Bridge Foundation and Nesta, other eminent founding partners of these projects are Telefonica, Orange, BBVA, European Investment Bank, Cambridge University, IE Madrid Business School, Humboldt University, and the Lisbon Council think tank.

“Europe needs thriving start-ups and global internet companies to become a global growth centre again,” Commissioner Kroes said. “Politicians don’t create jobs, entrepreneurs do.”

 L. P.