Listen to this. I talked to a great crowd of students entrepreneurs at the opening of the pan-European Academic Enterprise Awards. The Ceremony was held earlier this year at the ETH in Zurich. I was empty-headed when entering the corridors of the Federal Institute of Technology designed by Gottfried Semper (unchangeably great architecture). As I spoke, I realized that my head was filled with chapters of the book that I had been working on for some time. So, while the book is still in writing, please enjoy this AUDIBLE, which starts with a story of a dean who invested in a startup… (click here to listen)

I participated in the Academic Enterprise Awards organized by ScienceBusiness at the ETH Zurich. Congratulations to all the winners!! Great people. Great companies. To look them up (click here).

I talked last week in Zurich to a group of great European entrepreneurs who were finalists at the Academic Enterprise Awards - the only pan European awards for university ventures organized by ScienceBusiness, a media network. Their pitches were excellent and the technology they develop has a global market potential. Some of them already made it to the Silicon Valley. Others work on industrial project of over billion EUR. But the question is how to make Europe scale up its entrepreneurship potential. Is it possible to create a fashion for entrepreneurship in Europe? It is happening in other parts of the world. Look up events like ’Campus Party’ in Sao Paulo, Brazil and elsewhere. Check up a real Woodstock for geeks (click here).

On Saturday, April 10th, the plain with the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and 94 other passengers - political leaders, army generals, bishops and crew members - crashed in Smolensk, Russia.

We are all very shocked, and sad, and united here in our mourning. It is a great loss for the Polish nation. It aslo has this other deeply sad historic layer. President Kaczynski and others were flying to Katyn to commemorate the 70th anniversary of a tragic death of 22 000 Polish officers (!) assassinated by the Soviets in April 1940. The truth about this murder had been kept secret for 50 years.

I would like to thank all my Friends for sending their condolences and words of sympathy.

I am one of the keynote speakers at the upcoming Oxford Summit of Leaders (see more at www.ebaoxford.co.uk).

I will speak about the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and the progress the EIT has made with the three newly chosen Knowledge and Innovation Communities.

Comments welcome!

Oxford Summit of Leaders March 2010

European Institute of Innovation and Technology has announced a call addressed to individuals for the establishment of a database of independent experts to provide expertise in support of evaluations and of implementation of the EIT and of KICs.

The EIT is looking for experts from a wide range of profiles and with a high level of professional expertise within the following areas:

• Thematic area: Sustainable energy
• Thematic area: Climate change adaptation and mitigation
• Thematic area: Future information and communication society
• Business creation and venture capital
• Innovation in existing business
• Entrepreneurial Education
• Research and product development

More information is available on the Experts page at: http://eit.europa.eu.

What will emerged out of the current economic turmoil… (well, this surely could be a catchy opening of a Hollywood production)… when the dawn comes and the world awakes after its destruction of yesterday… Ian Davis, the worldwide managing director of McKinsey, claims that the new landscape will mean less leverage (equals less innovation in the financial services and less creativity in accounting); more government interference (means spreading bureaucratic rather than entrepreneurial culture); limitations of consumption-driven growth in developed markets (can cause serious emotional ups and downs to many loyal-shopping-mall-frequent-flyers); continued economic shift eastward (so prophesies about the end of [our] world are true); ad finally an abundance of opportunities for those who are prepared… “Through it all, technological innovation will continue, and the value of increasing human knowledge will remain undiminished. For talented contrarians and technologists, the next few years may prove especially fruitful as investors looking for high-risk, high-reward opportunities shift their attention from financial engineering to genetic engineering, software, and clean energy.“, he writes.

Very good, this is where my professional efforts are focused now. I am a part of a team working full speed launching the EIT, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Let’s do all to be prepared for the upcoming opportunities.

Dare be a revolutionary, says Guy Kawasaki, the Apple evangelist, in his newest book Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services. Quite to my surprise, the cutting edge approach to innovation today drifts toward merging art with technology, design thinking with information society, philosophy and literature with business. And this IS what I have been doing in my life over the last 20 years. I have mastered the art of rupture, career fragmentation, fallacy and love with new ideas. I’ve been a design curator and an art historian. An investment banker and a venture capitalist. A corporate innovator and a social entrepreneur. More and more careers like these I find around. People do dare to follow a new paradigm. Do dare to design their professional lives leading tacit revolution. My compliments to Mr. Kawasaki for making these choices legitimate.

The phrase “disruptive innovation” mirroring “creative disruption” - the famous statement by an Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, indicates the intrinsic, reproductive force of the capitalist system. While some say that the turbulence at financial markets today will refrain investment from high-risk innovation-driven ventures, I believe the opposite. Why? Because turbulent and unstructured environment brings much more opportunities. Seasoned entrepreneurs say, that this is the time for taking bold actions. For more on disruptive innovation read the recent article at Knowledge at Wharton.

I was lucky to have Brooke Mahoney as my Mentor. We met in Warsaw in February 1999. She came to Poland with her husband, Professor Norman Berman and a group of MBA students from Leonard Stern Business School. I was a part of a group of WUT Business School students. We organized their visit and it turned out that, while my colleagues were to assist our American guests visit Polish enterprises, I was asked to take care of Dean’s wife… “S…, I thought. In such circumstances, I will never become a businesswoman.”I was waiting for Brooke in the lobby of the Bristol Hotel. Wearing my ecological fur coat, I was paralyzed when I saw Brooke wearing long black sport coat and white running shoes:-). We could either love or hate each other from the first glance… Three minutes later, Brooke told me she had had a breast cancer. And I answered: “So what.”, boldly looking into her eyes. Our long lasting friendship started.Then in Warsaw, we spent three days just walking the streets in the chilly weather. We talked, talked and talked. I was so much impressed to learn that she was one of the first (first?) women to get her MBA diploma from Harvard Business School in 1967. In 1969, she started Volunteer Consulting Group, a pioneer organization focused on NGOs’ governance issues. Brooke was enthusiastic about VCG’s new initiative to launch an Internet service matching NGOs and potential board members. Getting good people on board was often a key success factor to make the impact a community needed, she explained to me. I sought her advice what to do with life after graduating from WUT Business School. She told me to look into strategic consultancy (Brooke wrote a recommendation letter to McKinsey, yet they probably did not want a candidate with two children), into investment banking and Venture Capital. After graduating with a MBA diploma, I got my first job was in a small investment banking firm specialized in media and telecom. My second job, was in VC. Now I run a small consultancy specializing in strategic advisory.During these few winter days in Warsaw, Brooke helped me design my professional career. We stayed in touch over e-mail and met again only once in 2006 in New York. Over a dinner in Brooke’s and Norman’s place we talked about history. “So do you say that America can disappear from the power map like Poland did?”, she asked, when I explain to them three centuries of Poland’s glory and ultimate defeat at the end of the 18th century. Next day we met at the Harvard Club, I gave her “God’s Playground”, a book on Polish history by Norman Davis. Brooke died last year, after 10 years of fight with cancer.For me, Brooke will remain a legend.And a very dear Friend.And a Mentor.

Brooke, Norman and myself, NY, May 2006.

http://www.vcg.org/All_About_VCG/staff_bios_mahoney.htm