Minalogic, the digital technology cluster for France’s Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, announced that its CEO, Isabelle Guillaume, has been appointed Chairwoman of the Silicon Europe Alliance, effective October, 26. She succeeds Peter Simkens, CEO of Belgium’s DSP Valley cluster.
The Silicon Europe Alliance was established in 2015 to support Europe’s microelectronics and digital technology industries. The Alliance—made up of twelve top-performing European clusters with a total of some 2,000 members—strives to create joint R&D and business opportunities between their communities.
A full program of activities since October 2015
Since the Alliance was set up a year ago, it has run a particularly full program of activities to help its members build relationships and generate leads:
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Qualified, targeted introductions between member companies seeking partners for joint R&D projects.
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Business networking opportunities for member companies: Minalogic Business Meetings (April 2016, Grenoble, France); DSP Valley B2B Forum (June 2016, Leuven, Belgium); Silicon Saxony Day (June 2016, Dresden, Germany).
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Sales trips to introduce Alliance member companies to other international clusters and innovation centers:
- Taiwan, June 2016, European Innovation Week, to promote Europe’s know-how in microelectronics and digital technologies to a large number of participants representing Taiwanese government agencies, business, and academia.
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Finland, October 2016, an initiative of Alliance member cluster BCS (Netherlands).
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In May 2016 the Alliance submitted a coordinated response to European Commissioner for Research, Science, and Innovation Carlos Moedas’ open public consultation on the EU’s plans to create a European Innovation Council (EIC). The EIC would support innovative European startups and SMEs. The Alliance voiced its support for the proposal, highlighting the crucial role Europe’s clusters are already playing and encouraging the future EIC to work closely with the clusters.
- Joint submissions to major EU projects that encompass several types of technologies and/or markets: personalized medicine, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Factory of the Future (FoF).
Far-reaching goals looking ahead
The Alliance and its member clusters will continue their efforts in 2017, with plans to do even more to help build relationships between their respective members:
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Specific networking events for members seeking potential R&D and business partners:
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The Alliance is planning a “European R&D Partnership” meeting focused on ICTs.
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Minalogic hopes to reproduce its Open Innovation Days, expanding the successful format to the entire Alliance; the meetings host a major corporation or government agency and are open to startups and SMEs that belong to the cluster, with the goal of generating potential R&D and business partnerships.
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New resources to make it easier for members to identify potential partners.
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Stronger relationships with other clusters and innovation centers outside of Europe, with a particular focus on North America and Asia.
“The Silicon Europe Alliance’s goals are closely aligned with the European Commission’s ‘single digital market’ strategy. Our aim is to get our communities working together to promote partnerships and innovation across Europe to help all of our members create more R&D and business partnerships faster. Ultimately, we are trying to make it as easy for our members to reach out to markets across Europe as it is to address their own domestic markets,” said Minalogic CEO and newly-appointed Silicon Europe Alliance Chairwoman Isabelle Guillaume.
