OBJECTIVES

• Innovation capability building: supporting ICT organizations to extend their capabilities to develop innovative and competitive products and services (cooperation, information sharing, education).
• Developing an innovation friendly market environment, market development:  practically improving market environment conditions, such as mapping resources (human, capital), market building, improve legal environment.

BACKGROUND FACTS

IVSZ, the Hungarian Association of IT Companies is the largest infocommunications association in Hungary covering more than 75% of the annual output of the Hungarian ICT industry. IVSZ has more than 350 members, a balanced distribution of SME-s (over 250), large Hungarian companies (45) and multinationals (over 40) and some ICT related other organizations.

The IVSZ Innovation Program was launched in September 2006, after more than a year of preparation, to promote competitiveness in the Hungarian economy. The Innovation Program is hosted by the innovation working group.
 
MEMBERSHIP OF THE INNOVATION WORKGROUP

Direct members can be IVSZ member organizations, and indirect (cooperating) members can be other ICT related organizations, such as research institutions, universities, governmental agencies, international partners). As of November 2006, the working group has over 50 members already, and the number of members is increasing. Most members are SME-s, however, the number of large companies and other organizations is increasing as well.

The chairman and contact person of the Innovation Program and the innovation workgroup is Mr. Szabolcs Kátai (email: katai@ivsz.hu, tel: +36 20 329 2459), while the IVSZ board member mentor of the initiative is Mr. Antal Kuthy, president of E-Group. Each active project has a project leader and all activities are carried out by the membership, with the support of the IVSZ secretariat.

PROGRAM GOALS

All goals of the IVSZ innovation program originate from the support requirements of the innovation chain.

We think about the innovation chain as follows:

The working group has identified a number of different project topics as topics of interest for the innovation program, grouped by capability building vs. market development focus and distributed over the innovation chain:

Each "bubble" represents a certain topic of interest for which the workgroup launches a project. The exact location of the "bubbles" indicates whether the main goal of support targets the ICT industry or the market environment, and whether the scope of the support action is directed towards the idea generation phase, the R&D phase, the product development phase or the market placement phase of the innovation chain.

TOPICS OF INTEREST OF THE IVSZ INNOVATION PROGRAM

International R&D co-operations (FP7, CIP, Asia)

In today’s global market environment international co-operations are crucially important in efficient technology development and market placement. For this reason, we think of encouraging international co-operations as high priority actions. (Back in 2005 IVSZ has already successfully supported member companies in participating in the EU-s FP6 program.)

-     Facilitating European research co-operations by participating in FP7 support action projects, sharing partner search information, using resource and network maps to encourage the creation of project consortia.

-     Facilitating Asian research co-operations by working together with the Hong-Kong - Hungarian Innovative Business Council and other similar organizations.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you are looking for Hungarian partners for your FP7 project idea or consortium please send us your contact details and search request.

Finding opportunities for industry sectoral effectiveness

We believe that though ICT industry is in itself an important industry sector, the main value add of ICT is in providing efficiency increase and increased innovation capabilities for other industries, and thus increases the competitiveness of the entire economy. In addition, blending expertise in interdisciplinary topics can boost development in new areas. For this reason this topic intends to identify areas of opportunities where different industry sectors can benefit from using ICT more intensively.

-     targeting individual industry segments separately (such as logistics, biotechnology, health industry, transport, energy, tourism, environment protection, etc...) and identifying concrete problems, defining areas of opportunity, creating project ideas.

-     in practice we intend to bring together expert groups of particular industries and IT professionals in the framework of targeted workshops, then follow up project ideas.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you have some innovative industry sector specific technology or solution, please send us your contact details and description of your product/service/technology.

SME-s of the Hungarian ICT industry are typically under capitalized and have very limited R&D resources. For this reason we think of developing co-operations with academy in order to utilize resources as a strategically important.

-     systematically mapping Hungarian ICT competence centers in academy, identifying R&D capabilities.

-     finding currently existing industry-academy co-operations. Collecting good examples, best practices (both locally and internationally) and disseminating this knowledge.

-     to facilitate the creation of new co-operations organizing industry-academy workshops where academic research groups introduce themselves to industry representatives, first as a plenary then in one-to-one meetings.

-     organizing brainstorming workshops to find new, innovative business strategies for innovative products.

-     attracting academy representatives into the work of the Innovation Program of IVSZ.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If are a research center and you would like to cooperate with innovative Hungarian ICT companies in R&D or you are a company and would like to cooperate with Hungarian research centers please send us your contact details and competencies.

Knowledge and network map

The primary goal of this topic is to encourage cooperation and reaching critical mass, where individual SME-s would not be able to reach their goals. (This topic provides the base for several other topics of the Innovation Program.)

-     creating a database of the common knowledge and network of members in areas such as company competencies and resources for R&D and innovation, local and international contacts maps, committee memberships maps, etc.

-     creating an "ideas market" for posting project ideas, international project proposal ideas, development ideas, thematic cooperation ideas.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you are interested in co-operating with innovative Hungarian ICT companies and/or IVSZ, please send us your contact details and competencies. 

Policy suggestions

The legal and economic environment for R&D and innovation - such as regulations, governmental priorities, organizational infrastructure, development directions - are important topics which can encourage or hinder innovative behavior of companies. For such reasons, monitoring this environment and co-operating with governmental bodies in order to improve this environment is an important task.

-     establishing and cultivate existing partnerships with governmental bodies responsible for innovation policy. Co-operating with these bodies in order to improve the innovation environment.

-     Cultivating international partnerships (e.g. in European Commission and other European organizations, trade associations such as EICTA, etc.), mapping the network of members in international committees and efficiently utilizing this network to communicate our priorities.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you are in the position where our policy suggestions can help your work please send us your contact details and area of interest.

Publicity for R&D and innovation

Generally promoting the idea and benefits of innovation and the innovative approach is crucial for two reasons. First this is an effective channel towards winning the commitment of political decision makers. Second this can be a tool to increase the affinity towards engineering and R&D professions and thus reducing the lack of educated, professional workforce required by innovative industry.

-     Winning the support of highly respected personalities and organizing highly publicized innovation promotion events with their "flagship" participation. These events will serve as thought provoking, trend setting events as well, which should help the scientific, and innovative industrial community to understand current trends and opportunities.

-     Promoting entrepreneurial and innovative behavior in universities, organizing innovation prizes in order to raise the interest of students.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you know about good practice of promoting innovation in your country please send us your contact details.

Product development education

Product development know-how, the knowledge of processes to create marketable products from technology development results (including technology transfer) is identified as a relatively scarce resource in Hungary. For this reason, our goal is to increase the product development capability of Hungarian ICT companies.

-     collecting good examples, best practices (both locally and internationally) and disseminating this knowledge

-     creating a formal educational course, a series of lectures and encouraging companies to participate and increase their product development capabilities. Identifying internationally respected lecturers and bringing them to Hungary is Co-operation Opportunity    
If you are or you know somebody to be a good practitioner and speaker on product development or technology transfer, or if you know good practices in the field, please contact us.

Self certification system

Defining "innovative companies" effectively is a difficult task, especially if one wants to use this definition both as a marketing tool and an official means to be eligible to certain legal benefits (such as tax and other regulatory benefits). The goal of this topic is to create an effective definition of "innovative companies" which both the market and governmental bodies accept and then promote companies that have reached such a position.

-     Collecting current good practices in other countries and then working together with both industry and government to arrive at a good definition of "innovative company".

-     Promoting publicly the "innovative company" certificate and companies that have received it.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you know about good practice in innovation certification systems please contact us and let us know your experience.

Co-operation among multinationals and SMEs in the field of R&D and innovation can be beneficial to both sides. On the one hand, research topics and projects of multinationals can be highly interesting for SMEs and incorporating SMEs into such projects would benefit them. On the other hand SMEs having innovative ideas or products/services can find co-operation with multinationals an efficient channel to commercialize their intellectual property. For this reason, we want to encourage multinational - SME co-operations.

-     Organizing "speed-dating" events for innovative SMEs. These are events where business decision makers of large companies provide focused opportunities to SME representatives to introduce themselves and their co-operation ideas. (these events work very well in general terms and IVSZ regularly organizes these for its members.)

-     Creating a pool of ideas and facilitating networking among representatives of large and small companies.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you are a representative of a large enterprise and are looking for innovative partner SMEs in Hungary, please send your contact details and the types of topics and companies you are interested in.

Innovation business models

Innovative products and services require special treatment in realizing the market value of the product or service. Thus finding the appropriate business models and market strategies that suit the innovation is crucial for business success. Thus the main goal of this topic is to support innovative companies in their market placement of their innovative products and services.

-     collecting good examples, best practices (both locally and internationally) and disseminating this knowledge

-     organizing brainstorming workshops to find new, innovative business strategies for innovative products.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you feel like sharing your good practice in creating an efficient business model for your innovative product/service or participating in brainstorm, please send us your contact details and description of your model.

This topic provides an information base for many other topics by identifying financial resources available to Hungarian companies for R&D and innovation.

-     Creating a database of available resources, including local grants, EU funds (FP7, CIP), venture capital, loan opportunities, large innovative projects, etc.

-     Co-operating with owners of information in order to keep the database up-to-date.

Co-operation Opportunity    
If you would like to partner with us to provide information on EU or other grant opportunities, please send us your contact details and type of information you can provide.  

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