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The sharing economy: Sharing is now business.
The instinct of Property is very strong in Western culture: we want to have our house, our car, our bicycle, our clothes, our tent… However, this instinct sometimes clashes with the need to manage our resources effectively. The Internet, which has changed the world so much in recent years, may also be changing our habits…
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Role of the Basque Network of Science, Technology and Innovation
Mikel Navarro and Edurne Magro wonder in El País < a href="http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2013/09/08/paisvasco/1378661018_949610.html">why is the RVCTI needed and they advocate that Vocational Training Schools (EFP) and SEIC companies (Knowledge-Intensive Business Services) must form part of the Basque Network for Science, Technology and Innovation (RVCTI). First of all, I would like to congratulate the authors for analyzing…
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Public-private commitment and smart specialization
In the previous post I talked about the < em>need to focus more on our scientific, technological and sectoral betsas a way for an intelligent specialization policy (here). Some readers have suggested to me that it is as important or more important than the need to focus is to discuss how this can be done,…
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The importance of mobile traffic: Baidu buys 91 Wireless for $1.9 billion
Last week Baidu, China’s largest search portal, bought app store 91 Wireless for $1.9 billion from NetDragon WebSoft. The app store reported having had more than 10 billion downloaded apps that it distributes through various tools such as 91 assistant, 91 Launcher and others. If Baidu and Google are the gateways to the Web, what…
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Smart specialization. We have to spin finer
The great “words” that come to us from Europe run the risk of becoming trivialized and becoming what I call “speech fillers” to look good. The “intelligent specialization” The fashionable recommendation of the European Commission’s regional innovation and competitiveness policies follows this path. Nobody understands it well, everyone interprets it as it suits them and…
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Snapchat: we like graphic and ephemeral communication
An extraordinarily high assessment of a company that only a few months ago had only four workers, Snapchat, the app that allows you to send instant and “self-destructing” graphic messages, that is, they are erased with the time. One of those success stories of young programmers that is rarely seen outside of Silicon Valley: just…
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Euskadi an industrial country. Utopia or reality?
Can the industrial strength of the Basque Country be maintained in the next decades? The official speeches answer the question in the affirmative and conspire to enhance the character and industrial potential of the Country. Reality requires us, as always, a much finer and more nuanced analysis: Following the pattern of developed countries(*), industry in…
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The YPlan app: a simple idea and an excellent execution
A few weeks ago Techcrunch was featured on the news of the $12 million investment in the startup YPlan, which develops a mobile app for London nightlife. The company had already received an investment of 1.7 million dollars in 2012 to seek to be the benchmark in the dissemination and reservation of night events (parties,…
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Smart cities facing the challenge of climate change
Smart City Expo Wrold Congress 2012, what was exhibited on the environment (II): climate change At the end of last year I had the opportunity to attend the Smart City Expo World Congress, organized by Fira de Barcelona, to produce a series of articles on the environment and energy that synthesized the most relevant aspects…
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Crisis in Tecnalia. Where is the government?
Photographs of Tecnalia workers fighting for their jobs of work are a tremendous blow to the eyes of the industrial and technological Basque Country. And I am not referring to the layoffs themselves, to those affected we transfer our support and closeness from here. These adjustments have not been the first nor will they be…