Guest Blog: “Portugal: more than just port and surfing”

Guest blog post by Wim De Waele, CEO of IBBT, of which the IBBT-iLab.o Living Lab is a part. On his latest visit to Portugal he was impressed by the way open innovation is tackled by the Portuguese authorities, and reinforced by the open and dynamic way the market was responding to this policy, resulting in remarkable sucess stories.

Guest blog post by Wim De Waele, CEO of IBBT, of which the IBBT-iLab.o Living Lab is a part. On his latest visit to Portugal he was impressed by the way open innovation is tackled by the Portuguese authorities, and reinforced by the open and dynamic way the market was responding to this policy, resulting in remarkable sucess stories.

The flight between Lisbon and Brussels, which was when I finally found the time to sit down and write this piece, is just half full.  A few tourists, a few businessmen.  It shows that the economic ties between Portugal and Belgium are rather modest.  I have to admit in all honesty that I was rather sceptical when someone suggested that I take some time out to look at what the Portuguese are doing in the world of ICT innovation.  And wrongly so, I have to now admit.  Portugal – located rather on the fringes of Europe – has had to make up a lot of lost ground.  However it has implemented a well-thought through policy that has started to yield its fruits.

Three things struck me in particular:

In the first place Portugal has shown great constancy in its policy over the last ten years.  It has consistently invested in long-term ICT innovation.  Thanks to the political stability in the country it has been possible to introduce a policy that is not changed at the drop of a hat. There has also been sufficient political courage to get all the players working towards the same goal plus the fact that Portugal could not afford to get itself immersed in a parochial war between different regions and universities.  The policymakers are thoroughly aware of the problem (I am no fetishist when it comes to qualifications, but you don’t always need to have a minister and secretary of state with an engineering diploma) and have a long-term vision.  Plus I did not find a typical southern European culture with long lunches during this visit – the meetings all ran to a tight schedule and I actually have no idea what Lisbon or Porto look like. 

In the second place people were always willing to admit that there were best practices in other parts of the world that they could learn from.  Partnerships have been signed with top universities from the United States such as Carnegie Mellon and MIT that give promising researchers the opportunity to get to know each other the ‘American Way’ and to obtain a more global view of their areas of specialization and the opportunities.  This stands in shrill contrast with many other European regions and universities that just will not admit that they are not at the top of the pyramid in spite of unambiguous global rankings that regularly prove the contrary.  I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of the researchers that I met, both in the research institutes as well as in start-up companies.  It was not just their technological work that was impressive, but the fact that they are able to translate this into different commercial applications and are able to communicate it all convincingly.  

In the third place a very clear choice has been made for an economically oriented policy where the creation of new companies and corresponding employment are a number one priority.  Some of these companies came as a pleasant surprise and they also have a clearly international profile. One of them is Ydreams that works in the field of augmented reality. The CTO of Ydreams was very explicit: now that they are ready to launch a product they will do this via a branch in Silicon Valley. This seemed the only way of succeeding in this sector. In spite of the fact that their two main competitors, the French Total Immersion and German Metaio, are both European, the American market is where this type of product makes it or breaks it.  I think they are right and this is a fact that our European policymakers need to think seriously about.  Notwithstanding, it was encouraging to see this type of company emerging in an outpost of Europe.  A company whose mission is to conquer the world, even though it may want to do this via the United States. 

I was pleasantly surprised by Portugal. And Ydreams is a company to keep a close eye on.