EURAXESS Smart Talks
The EURAXESS Smart Talks podcast for talents is your personal guide to Research Careers, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.
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EURAXESS Smart Talks
From Science to Startup: Inside Information - Part 1
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Is entrepreneurship a feasible career option for researchers? How can EURAXESS help young researchers develop a career in entrepreneurship? For answers to these questions and practical tips, listen to today's EURAXESS Smart Talks and learn more from experts and Ph.Ds. who made this transition successfully.
In part one of this episode, we will hear insights and tips for young talents from Prof. Milan Zdravkovic, leader of the EURAXESS Hubs project entrepreneurship initiative. We will also hear Vaido Mikheim, a participant in the EURAXESS Hubs start-up tour who will share his perspectives on the Estonian start-up ecosystem. In part two of this episode, we will hear the inspiring success story of Nobel prize winner Prof. Dan Shechtman, who will share his tips and insights as an experienced mentor in entrepreneurship, at the prestigious Israel Institute of Technology, the Technion. These episodes cover challenges researchers face in the transition from academia to entrepreneurship.
Keywords: entrepreneurship, talents, science, career, startup, start-up ecosystem, business, academia-industry interface, European researchers.
Euroxis Smart Talks for Talents, your personal guide to research, careers, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Hi, I'm Daria, a senior expert of the Euro Access National Contact Point in Latvia.
SPEAKER_03And Dani Oven, a teaching and research assistant from Serbia, and you are listening to EuroAxxis Smart Talks.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to today's episode titled From Science to Startup Inside Information. The ideal startup needs at least three people: a geek, a financial wizard, and a generalist manager, said Nobel Prize winner Professor Scheffman, who will be our guest later on in this episode. So what is the ideal scientific startup entrepreneurship?
SPEAKER_03Scientific startup entrepreneurship is a career path in which a scientific finding, as a result of PhD, postdocs, or research in later career stages in any area, is transformed into an innovative product or service, which is then validated and improved by early adopters, brought to the market, and then continuously scaled up in terms of product or service quality and coverage. Scientific entrepreneurship is clearly recognized as one of the pathways for bridging the gaps between research, innovation, and the market. Let us start this topic smart with those who can explain. Our first guest is Professor Milan Zdravkovich. Professor Zdravkovic is an associate professor and leading researcher at the University of Nish.
SPEAKER_00He has worked as an expert for evaluation and mentoring of startups in Scientific Technology Park Belgrade. He is a coordinator of the Serbian National Euro Access Network. Milan is the leader of the Scientific Startup Entrepreneurship Hub in the Euro Access Hub project. So, hi Milan. Thank you very much for coming. The Scientific Startup Entrepreneurship in the Euro Access Hubs pilot focuses on entrepreneurship for researchers. And why is this an important area for Euro Access to focus on?
SPEAKER_01Hello, Daria. Hello, Johan. Thanks for inviting me to your podcast. I mean, it's important because it's uh uh its career as uh any other for researchers, but then again, I mean we have to say that uh when you think about the scientific entrepreneurship, when you look at the startup ecosystem, when you have in mind that startup is something that is being disruptive, that is being innovative, that is being completely new, where else can you find new things uh unless in uh scientific work? So if you think that way, basically the the best uh let's say environment where you could look for future startup championship, championship champions is academia, is actually research landscape. So this is why this career is really prospective with the blooming and the of the startup scene in the world uh uh in the past years, and especially with all the challenges that have been brought by, for example, COVID pandemics and the response of academia and researchers and startup ecosystem towards solution of many issues uh uh within the pandemics, you know, this becomes a really and truly hot topic. Going back to Euraxis, Euraxis is all about supporting research careers. So uh if we look for the roots of scientific entrepreneurship, we should probably go into engineer looking into engineering sciences where that becomes possible. You know, science, scientific method, actually, which is uh based on uh it's it's quite rigid, it's based on the uh uh hypotheses, it's based on experiments, it's based on validation, uh, it's based on uh more experienced uh where which you implement in order to prove some hypotheses and to make it new scientific knowledge. This is how scientific knowledge becomes us becomes a common knowledge. Uh this is something that is very similar to the path of the startups, of the entrepreneurs, you know, because uh the startups are when comparing to the conventional entrepreneurship, for example, uh the startups are not something that uh are not uh, let's say companies or enterprises which are looking far in the future. Uh when you're having an enterprise, you want to get some funding and you build some business plan uh five-year long, and then you go to banks and you ask for loans and things like that. I mean you're looking for investors, but uh your business is basically based on uh how well you know about the future, how well, how convinced you are that your plans will uh uh will be successful. Startup is completely opposite of that. In startup you build hypotheses and then you experiment with customers, and then if this experiment goes wrong, then you pivot, then you change your direction, and you change it very fast and very often. You know, sometimes even uh there are examples, especially in fintech, there are examples of startups which are pivoting many times during one month, you know, in order to find uh while communicating with the early adopters of their own product and processing their feedback. The point is not to go rigidly towards your vision, your mission, your expectations from our product, but to look into the customers. And this is why it's called experiment, because you don't know how it's going to work. Why you don't know? Because it's something new. Startup is uh a company that produces something new as something completely innovative. So basically, you don't have competition, so you cannot look in other backyard and see how they work, so you try to replicate that. No, instead of that, you're basically doing something completely new, and this is why you cannot make bring any guarantees. And this is this is what uh what is very similar to how science works, and uh the choice of startup careers uh for the scientists in that sense it's completely natural.
SPEAKER_03Can you tell us about the toolkit uh your work package and the Euraxis Hubs project has developed for implementing Euraxis startup hubs?
SPEAKER_01Toolkit is uh let's say a set of uh web pages, it's content, it's online content basically. Online content and some of the tools. One version will be going to be published on uh on Euraxis Jobs Portal, and another, which is uh which is uh for uh Euraxis Centers will be published on Euraxis External, but this is not our topic. But uh what you are going to find in this toolkit open to researchers, let's say, because they are our main target group. You will find uh uh uh, let's say uh e-book about the beginnings, I mean introduction to scientific entrepreneurship, introducing some of new concepts in the in uh so-called lean startup theory uh set up by uh one very popular entrepreneur and uh book author, Eric Reese, uh, who is uh basically an evangelist of this uh new lean startup philosophy. So we are trying to introduce this new philosophy into scientific entrepreneurship and to somehow make it fit with those even uh still rigid infrastructures such as technology transfer centers and other supporting infrastructures for startups in uh in the academia, then you have uh uh, for example, one uh uh exhaustive section on the startup ecosystem, which is quite important for us, you know, because we want to show uh that startup is a collaborative thing. I mean, even if your the idea is yours, even if you are fully protected with uh fully protected your intellectual property, you're still working in one ecosystem, and you should know how to bring the best out of this ecosystem and how to use it for your benefit, but also how to return back and how to uh become a member of community because community is always giving back uh to you. Uh, in in this in this case, this is especially important. Uh, this story about the ecosystem is even more important for the Euroxess centers because if you want to build those local collaborations, you are looking at this, you are looking at the types of the organizations in ecosystem, you are learning about uh which type of the organization can bring which benefits into your uh uh let's say future hub, for example, if you want to build one. Then uh we have uh uh uh a tool for searching online resources, and we have some we collected and created more than 400 online resources for the different, I mean it's web pages, online tools, uh online applications, and things like that. Uh for example, online courses, many different types of resources. Uh, nine more than 95% of those are available for free. Some are not, but uh, of course, some trial versions are available, so we put them in because we still believe that though though even those trial versions can be helpful to researchers when we're talking about online tools. Uh then we have uh let's say a set of articles in four different top segments. These are the pillars of the online toolkit. One is uh, let's say, innovation support in academia. So uh the articles about what kind of structures you can find in academia which can support you and what you can expect from them. Then another is training, entrepreneurship training. We find this quite important because we see that uh uh that rise and uptake of entrepreneurship training in especially in engineering school is being uh increasing every day. Then we have uh collaborations. Uh, so what kind of collaborations, how to uh mostly how to establish the collaborations and what kind of benefits can you expect, but also followed by the examples of good practice where you can learn really a lot, and the fourth, it's uh uh diversity and inclusion, you know, because uh currently startups unfortunately are the male playground, and this is quite uh evident when you look at the data, and this is something that we found as very, very important. It's not only related to establishing gender balance, but also other uh, let's say, uh, groups that are uh kind of not represented the best, and there is doubts that they are not offered equal opportunities uh in order to succeed. So this we find very important, and we have also a set of articles and good practice in uh in this part. Not only scientific entrepreneurship, but also lean startup concepts, and uh to learn about uh uh as I as I talked before, something that's very specific to the start, to how startup works, especially when comparing to the other forms on conventional entrepreneurship. And we were going to have uh uh IPD from Israel working on this, you know, because they have a huge network of uh really truly startup champions and uh uh really uh organizations that truly excel in uh turning the innovation into uh into very successful product or a service. So the second part is uh let's say more related to testimonials and case studies, and that's going to be organized by the University of Luxembourg, and both of those webinars will take place quite soon. The first one uh in the beginning of May. I don't know if this podcast will be published before or after that, and the second training, the second training will be organized uh, I think in the beginning of July, but I'm not sure about this. But uh the network and everyone will be informed about this, and these these trainings uh uh are uh dedicated to Euraxis centers, not for researchers, although, of course, researchers can uh participate. The second part, the second let's say, activity which is aiming directly at researchers and which we uh really truly hope to have a really great impact, is something that we call ERAX Startup Tour. It's a series of free study visits to let's say uh Israel, Haifa and Tel Aviv, Estonia, Tallinn, and uh Luxembourg, University of Luxembourg. And each of those visits will take uh take uh two or three days uh to complete, and uh seven countries which are partners in the hubs in the the startup hub work package of the Euraxis Hubs uh project will recruit uh each of them will recruit one researcher who will participate in the free study visits or three where each of them will participate in one of the study visits. So we are going to have at least let's say from 7 to 21 researchers participate in this pilot. And uh, besides those researchers, we will also have some of the RAX staff visiting, attending those study visits in order to, let's say, strengthen our own capacity to do something similar in our settings, in our environments, in our environment. Uh, the researchers that are being recruited as we speak, because there is a public call and announcement published on Euraxis portal about this, and there is uh quite uh vibrant uh, let's say, promotional activity as we can see on social media these days. Uh, that the target groups are early stage researchers, so we are targeting uh uh let's say PhD students or uh young researchers with PhD who already have their own startup. So they already established their they are already founders or co-founders. Uh and uh uh most uh uh what we would what is what we're we aiming at is that they did not yet receive some significant seed funding. So they still they are still in the the phase of independence of uh uh bootstrapping their own product or service or let's say getting some uh initial initial funding.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much. It was inspiring. I hope uh our listeners will use all this information that we have uh already provided for them. Thank you, Daniel. Euraxis Smart Talks for Talents, your personal guide to research careers, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_03Vido Mikhaim, who has more than 10 years in the startup ecosystem development sphere, took an active part in the recent Euroxys Hub startup tour in Estonia. Vaido pioneers Estonia Deep Tech startup ecosystem onwards as Deep Tech Project Lead at Startup Estonia.
SPEAKER_00As a lifelong sci-fi fan, Vaido trusts that the combination of human science and tech is the path to sustainable prosperity. For the last decade, Vaido lives and breathe the startup scene in Estonia. He's eager to talk about business incubators and accelerators and how to power the process of converting science to business. Waido, first of all, thank you very much for joining us. As an active participant in the Euroxys Hub startup tour, how did the Estonian Startup Tour contribute to the participants? Tell us, please.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for inviting me and uh good morning to uh to everybody. Uh I uh find the Euroxess initiative uh highly interesting, and I think it's an absolutely necessary activity to to broaden the horizons and perspectives of researchers and and scientists in general. Uh, one thing that always can be done better is communication. So uh, in order to bring this uh kind of uh from the beneath to surface that there are multiple ways how to contribute and the career paths are no longer in silos or predetermined paths, then I I feel that this is uh something that the Eurex uh visitors in Estonia definitely saw that there are multiple opportunities.
SPEAKER_03Please tell us a little about the Estonian startup ecosystem.
SPEAKER_02Um yes, in general, Estonia is a pretty good place right now. That uh we have moved into the strong innovator category according to the European Innovation Scoreboard, and hopefully, we are not leaving it anymore in the future. Uh also according to the community innovation service, Estonia has high ranked very highly in in terms of innovation. So we have a blossoming uh startup ecosystem. Um, roughly seven, eight years ago, we had only a few hundred startups. The number has grown now more to 1300. So it's uh it's a blossoming ecosystem. Of course, not everything is rosy, but at least the general direction is uh is a positive one.
SPEAKER_03And talking about the general direction and uh what contributed uh to Estonia's high ranking on the scoreboard, as you said?
SPEAKER_02I think this um this question has many layers. Uh one thing is that we have had all the elements that everybody has, so everybody has this opportunity that we have uh companies, we have active people, we have uh research and development institutions, among them strong universities. But if I would um if I would want to pick out one of them, uh one of the elements, uh then it's enthusiastic people. People who want to get things done. And in terms of um, let's say startup development or even new initiative development, then you need human resource, you need financial resource, also time is a resource, also ambition and focus are resources that where you are going to put those uh and where you are going to uh set your goals. So and it's a long, long, long road. It's not easy. You have to be like a river, you know, you are chipping away the resistance slowly but surely, and uh and you are working always uh within the university as well as outside the university, and it it greatly helps if you get the top management on board. But at the same time, you have also initiatives on the grassroots level. That uh one of the things that I would like to bring out that has worked really well in Estonia is that Estonian major universities, both University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology, have established proof of concept funds with universities' own funding. And this has brought to radar a lot of great initiatives which have commercialization potential.
SPEAKER_00Can you tell us uh please about unique success stories of scientists in Estonia who have moved from academia to entrepreneurship?
SPEAKER_02This is also a very good question. And uh, I was uh coming here and listing through some of the businesses and some of the projects that I know, and it is a hard choice. And then I decided that uh I will not go and talk about the big boys or the famous uh ones, but maybe a little bit less famous ones, but still who are doing really well. And my first example comes uh already from like 20 years back when the company was established. The company's name is Positium, and they are in a mobile big data business. And if you can imagine, then 20 years ago, mobile wasn't a thing yet. So they were ahead of their time. The core founding team was three professors and uh two students, and the students uh who were back then students are now the company owners and leaders. So uh, and they were purely academic team like Blue Sky Research. Like there was uh I don't know who would believe into the business potential of this team except by themselves. But they did believe, and uh now they are working uh not only in Estonia and they are actually doing quite an interesting project also with Lithuania, but they have had long-term collaboration with Indonesia, they are working in Africa, they have done a pilot project with uh Brazil in in South America. They are brought out as an exemplary example by United Nations and uh and World Bank, and they are working with World Tourism Organizations, so they are working with top global names in the mobile uh positioning or mobile big data industry.
SPEAKER_00Do you have some statistics or intuitive statistics uh about the success rate in comparison when we are talking about entrepreneurship and scientific entrepreneurship?
SPEAKER_02I would say that there are a few fundamental differences. Uh, first of all, usually the the deep tech or the scientific entrepreneurship is more long-term, which means uh it requires more patient capital and it requires more of these resources and all of those resources that we talked earlier. But on the downside of it, or the other side of the coin is that it also has more chances to die within this long period of time. Of course, the positive side is that once it becomes successful, it usually is far more successful than your, let's say, regular service software as a service company. But on the other hand, I would also say that the researchers are equipped to deal with uncertainty and complexity because science, in its essence, is a process of dealing with uncertainty and complexity, the same as with business. So, in a way, the characteristics of a scientist and a business person are not so different. Yeah, one of the things that people don't uh appreciate or don't understand often about the scientific entrepreneurship is that if you're talking about the products or services based or originating from academia, that they have been long in development and they have already kind of a ready-made solution that I believe that uh everybody has has a chance.
SPEAKER_00So, Waida, thank you very much. It was it was really interesting. Thank you for listening to the Euroxess Smart Talks podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and it was useful for you. Do you want to hear more? Part 2 is waiting for you on the Euroxys portal and on your podcast application. In the next episode, you will hear the inspiring success story of Nobel Prize winner Professor Dan Schechtmann, who will share his tips and insights as an experienced mentor in entrepreneurship at the prestigious Israel Institute of Technology The Technion. For more information on Euro Access, visit the Euro Access portal. You will find more episodes of the Euroxess Smart Talks podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
SPEAKER_03This episode was prepared by hosts Daria Xanova and Jovan Aranjelovic, audio engineer Pavle Draškkovich, outreach manager Vina Sameret, Production Manager Moria Rita, editors Ester Per, and Miroslav Penovich.
SPEAKER_00This episode is published under the Creative Commons TC BY license.
SPEAKER_03Until next time.
