Location Bratislava While some of them already have some experience, others are just setting out on their careers. But they see three months in Silicon Valley as a great chance to meet investors and mentors, as well as other young entrepreneurs from around the globe. The Slovak Spectator spoke with SARIO and representatives of the companies that won the inaugural year of the Startup Awards which is synergistically linked to SARIO´s Slovak Start-up Development Program. The Start-up Awards has two rounds. In the first round in early November the jury shortlisted 10 projects, then joined by the winner of the Startup Weekend. The final selection was made on November 17 in Bratislava and involved representatives from the Slovak IT community, guests from Silicon Valley and investors from central Europe. Each of the finalists had five minutes to present its product or service, a requirement was that it had been launched after January 1, 2009, and then five minutes to answer questions from the jury. The four startups selected to travel to Silicon Valley were Nicereply, Cover Page, Work In Field, and Studentive. Here are the first US impressions of the CEO of the first round winner – Michal Truban, Nicereply: “We are really happy that we can be in the Plug and Play Tech Center and we want to thank Neulogy and SARIO for this. The incubator offers great networking possibilities, visibility in front of local investors, a quiet workspace and they educate and mentor you in the ways that local entrepreneurs and investors think and work”. SARIO also will continue to be involved as its Slovak Start-up Development Programme is projected to last to the end of 2012. “This completely new type of competition showed the best from among innovative, startup companies as well as the most interesting technologies and ideas from young Slovak business people,” SARIO spokesperson Ľubomíra Gabrielová said, adding that it has placed Slovakia among the list of countries such as Austria, Denmark, Finland and Singapore that have sent representatives to Silicon Valley to get new knowledge as well as to develop and present their innovative projects at an international forum. “We expect that thanks to these new, discovered talents, a transfer of knowhow, technologies and capital to Slovakia will be enabled, as well as attraction of high-tech investments,” Gabrielová said. Source: www.slovakspectator.sk
