“The initial steps for building a bridge for Hungarian start-ups between Hungary and Silicon Valley have been made,” Minister of State for Economic Strategy Zoltán Cséfalvay said, speaking from San Francisco in a telephone interview with MTI.

Over the past two days, the Minister of State paid visits to the University of California in Berkeley, the US MAC (Market Access Center) in San José, and the Plug and Play incubator house in Sunnyvale. In addition, he was a guest at Ericsson's research and development centre and participated at a business-innovation forum in San Matteo.

“The business incubators of Silicon Valley are capable of providing Hungarian technological start-ups with the kind of assistance that makes them strong enough to enter the global market,” the Minister of State stressed.

He pointed out that some Hungarian enterprises which excel in competition between start-ups at home may move to Silicon Valley for a short period of time in order to adopt its mentality. The state bodies for business development in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ireland have already established such partnerships with Plug and Play.

As the Minister of State said, American participants at the business forum in San Francisco showed keen interest in the programme announced by the Hungarian Government two weeks ago, which supports the establishment of business incubators via private and public funding. Potential providers of intellectual and financial resources have both expressed interest in the scheme. The fact that budding technological enterprises, that will be funded for two years until they are ready to be launched, will be selected by the business incubator, has also been welcomed.

Besides Zoltán Cséfalvay, Hungary was also represented at the conference by Acting President of the National Innovation Office László Korányi, ELTE Dean Zoltán Horváth, President of GE Healthcare, President of the AmCham Innovation Committee Lajos Reich and Founder and CEO of iCatapult Imre Hild.

Zoltán Cséfalvay also held talks with the management of Flextronics in San José at which it has been discussed that the company might establish a product development centre in Hungary. “Details of this project are of course still being worked out, but the idea has been appreciated by both parties,” the Minister of State said. He underlined that Flextronics already has several business units in Hungary.

(Ministry for National Economy)