Location Bratislava On March 26, 2013 SARIO organized on the grounds the Ministry of Economy of the SR workshop dedicated to the topic of start-ups in Slovakia. The purpose of this event was to stimulate the debate on the promotion of young innovative firms in the scope of state and public administration as a part of broader start-up ecosystem. Milan Gavlák, Head of the strategic projects department opened the event, stressing the fact that Slovakia is a country with good technical background and a long tradition of industrial research and our scientists traditionally participate in leading national and international projects. SARIO´s perception of the start-ups issue has been presented in the presentation of Roman Sabo, Head of the investment projects department. The workshop was attended by almost 40 representatives of state and public government, academic and business communities, as well as representatives of the start-up community in Slovakia. "We are fully aware that modern economies are currently mainly focused on attracting investment with a higher added value. The innovative ecosystem is currently fragmented, and therefore we want to brainstorm together, put together the best case studies, learn from the best and from each other's experiences and to begin building systemic solutions, "said R. Sabo. Workshop in its second part continued with the discussion in smaller groups on a uniformly chosen topic - present challenges of start-ups in Slovakia and suggestions for addressing them. All groups agreed that priority should be given to education of young people, the education and its connection with practice and popularization of entrepreneurship from both the state and the public media. The issue of funding and simplification of the regulatory environment for business support was mentioned very frequently. SARIO is planning to process more complex output from this discussion, which should be the main basis for the improvement of its work with this target group.
