Telefonica, Orange back EC tech and startup initiatives

The European Commission has announced two initiatives aimed at nurturing Europe's tech and digital startups into global internet companies and at the same time tackling the continent’s unemployment problem. Telefonica and Orange are among the leading ICT companies, universities and financial institutions that have joined forces with the EC in setting up the projects: a new accelerator called the Startup Europe Partnership and a think tank called the European Digital Forum. The Startup Europe Partnership is an extension of the EC’s Startup Europe initiative and will be led by the non-profit Mind the Bridge Foundation and Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation. The goal is to bring together the leading lights of Europe’s entrepreneur and innovation industries, offering the opportunity for large corporations, startups and universities to connect and build networks.

The European Digital Forum, meanwhile, is a digital economy think tank that will be led by The Lisbon Council in collaboration with Nesta. The idea behind the Forum is to give corporations, startups and other relevant players a voice in policy debates. Ultimately, it aims to become Europe’s leading think tank and policy network on digital entrepreneurship. It will also produce an annual Digital Economy Index to measure Europe’s receptiveness to the digital mind-set.

Launching the initiatives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes said that “Europe needs thriving startups and global internet companies to become a global growth centre again,” adding that “politicians don’t create jobs, entrepreneurs do.”

Also in Davos, Telefonica COO Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete said that “boosting Europe’s digital competitiveness needs policies that spur investment and kickstart growth, but at the same time we need to encourage and support innovation-driven entrepreneurship. Key to this will be to narrow the gap between start-ups and multinational corporations.”

Nathalie Boulanger, senior vice president of Orange, in charge of its startup ecosystem, added that “open innovation is part of our DNA. We have already supported several initiatives that back startups.”

The two operators already have their own projects in the field. Telefonica has a programme to teach coding in schools called Think Big and a startup incubator called Wayra. Orange has its own startup accelerator programme called February and is backing a fund for startups with Iris Capital Management and the advertising company Publicis.

In addition to Telefonica and Orange, the EC's initiatives are also backed by Spanish bank BBVA, the European Investment Bank, Cambridge University, IE Business School and Humboldt University.