First quarterly report

Entrepreneurial networking with “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs” in Brussels „This is a fantastic opportunity; Brussels offers us a great market niche for our web development services“ describes Marcell Kiss-Toth from Budapest his experience abroad with his host entrepreneur Niels Bramsen in Brussels. Marcell and Niels both participate in the new European Programme “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs”. According to Thomas Berger and Monika Aliz Meszaros, who represent intermediate and support organisations of the programme, both entrepreneurs are among the first applicants and successful business relationships facilitated by the EU exchange programme. Both project coordinators are impressed by the energy and creativity of applicants of the programme. Marcello Mereu from Brussels is another young entrepreneur who applied successfully with his business plan for the EU-Programme. He is still looking for the right business partner in Europe and used the networking meeting in Brussels as an opportunity to get in touch personally with successful programme participants and contact persons of the European partnership of intermediate organisations OPEN-EYE (www.open-eye.net). “We want that more small and medium companies in Europe develop their potential to grow and to benefit from the European internal market” explained Marko Curavić, Head of Unit Entrepreneurship of the European Commission the rationale of the programme. The example of Niels and Marcell seems to confirm this approach. While Marcell’s host entrepreneur outsourced most of the development work so far to India the entrepreneurs have now started to recruit web developers in Hungary to provide quality services to their growing client base in Brussels and Belgium. When Marcell was asked how he found his host entrepreneur he had to admit: “Actually it was the opposite way round; he found me, as originally I wanted to go to London”. Marcell confirmed that both entrepreneurs soon discovered lots of common ground and the good relationship on a personal level in the end decided about spending 5 months together in Brussels on common project work. This finding is confirmed by the experience of more than 20 partnerships of intermediate organisations, whose representatives met in Brussels to evaluate the start of the programme. “The Internet based matchmaking database of the programme can be a helpful tool to establish contacts, as in the example of Marcell and Niels, but at the end of the day the personal contact and human element matters” so Thomas Berger, OPEN-EYE project manager. For this reason more than 100 intermediate organisations in Europe provide individual support to entrepreneurs, who are going to establish European business relationships. If you want to follow the example of Niels or Marcell ore one of the other more than 1000 entrepreneurs in Europe, who applied for the programme so far, do not hesitate to register at the Programme Website www.erasmus-entrepreneurs.eu The website www.open-eye.net offers more information about the European Partnership OPEN-EYE coordinated by the University of Applied Sciences Fulda and the Institute inter.research e.V. in Germany. For any questions or if you want to get in touch with Niels or Marcello contact the OPEN-EYE project manager Thomas Berger, berger@inter-research.de. If you would like to get in touch with Marcell, contact the EXE-PRIZE project partner Monika Aliz Meszaros, mmonika@itd.hu.

Graphic 1 f.l.t.r. Marcell Kiss-Toth (NE), Michela Salizzoni, Rosa Solanes, Thomas Berger (OPEN-EYE), Marcello Mereu (NE) and Sophie Franceschini, Andrea Rossi (OPEN-EYE)

Graphic 2 f.l.t.r. Michela Salizzoni, Thomas Berger (OPEN-EYE), Marcell Kiss-Toth (NE), Marko Curavić (EU), Monika Meszaros (EXE-PRIZE