#InnovationRiga Conference

The aim of the conference is to share scaling experiences of most successful creative and tech start-ups and to explore the success cases and formulate strategies for university-business links to create stimulating environment for high growth entrepreneurship.

The event will be interesting for young entrepreneurs, students, academia and business people, policy makers, mentors, journalists.

The conference #InnovationRiga is organized by the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) in cooperation with TechHub Riga and the Finnish Embassy in Latvia within Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) in Latvia.

TechHub R

10:00 Monday 12/11/2012

SSE Riga and TechHub Riga

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10:00 MORNING SESSION at SSE Riga Soros auditorium,
Strelnieku iela 4a, Riga
Big kick-off: success stories and how they got there.

10:00 – 10:20 Introductory comments

H.E. Pirkko Mirjami Hämäläinen, Ambassador of Finland to Latvia
Anders Paalzow, SSE Riga, Rector
Andris K. Berzins, TechHub Riga, Chairman

10:20 – 11:30 Keynote speech

Mark Turrell, serial entrepreneur and WEF Young Leader
Mark, a serial entrepreneur who led his second startup to a flotation on the London Stock Exchange, will talk about how he used crowdsourcing and mobile phones to deny Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe a win in the last election. He will then explain how startups can use the same approaches to grow their businesses.

11:30 – 11:45 Entrepreneruship Support Centre announcement
11:45 – 12:45 Panel with start-ups on how to grow via start-up hubs

Ville Simola, FAM Sports, Startup Sauna co-founder
Dalia Lasaite, Campalyst co-founder
Māris Daģis, Sellfy

13:00 Networking lunch

14:00 AFTERNOON SESSION at SSE Riga Soros auditorium,
Strelnieku iela 4a, Riga
Building a nest for eagles - how to create university-business links and entrepreneurial communities around know-how hubs.
What could be applied in the Baltics.

14:00 – 14:20 How to connect innovation in the university and business

Presentation by Alar Kolk Vice Rector, Tallinn Technical University

14:20 – 14:40 A Long Journey to Entrepreneurial University

Tõnis Mets, Head of the Centre for Entrepreneurship

14:40 – 15:40 Panel discussion on building university - business links: practical applications.

Alar Kolk, Vice Rector, Tallinn Technical University
Tonis Mets,Head of the Centre for Entrepreneurship atTartu University
Sami Lampinen, Managing Director & Partner, Inventure
Zeljko Boskovic, former Nokia Strategic Initiatives manager, Greenriders co-founder
Modris Ozolins, Deputy Rector, Business Liaison and Development, Riga Technical University

15:40 – 16:20 Entrepreneurship environment: case of Aaltoes, what can we learn.

Ville Simola, FAM Sports, Startup Sauna co-founder
Krists Avots, Coordinator, Entrepreneurship Support Centre at SSE Riga
Arturs Zeps, Executive director, Riga Technical University Development Fund
Guntis Šmaukstelis, CEO, MightyFingers and former student leader

16:20 – 17:00 Staffing & resources - what are we looking for in university graduates?

Maksims Jegorovs, CEO, Accenture Latvia
Ernests Štāls, Board Member TechHub Riga and Reach.ly Co-founder
Inga Gleizdāne, Board member and Head of research group, Fontes
Aksels Minders, Tilde

Break

18:30 EVENING SESSION at TechHub Riga,
Citadeles iela 12, Riga

Introduction & welcome

Daniels Pavluts, Minister of Economics of Latvia

Evening keynote speech

Michiel Kotting, Accel Partners
Michiel started working in technology as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in 1999, when he founded Digital Jones, an online shopping assistant. He successfully sold the company to Shopping.com, a company he then helped manage from New York and Israel. At Accel he focuses on consumer internet and SME enabling investments.He has an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School.

Networking