On Friday, March, the 14th, Marketers Club has been visiting Lakeside Park in Klagenfurt, Austria (thanks to our friends Fondazione La Fornace di Asolo). It is a technology and innovation park with a built-in start up incubator where university, business and ideas can really meet thanks to a great environment that has been established with a strong pubblic intervention.
Compared to Italy, we have to say, we can find all except what we have here and vice-versa.
If you happen to be an Italian visiting such a place you will be tremendously confused by how a pubblic structure can work that well. The first thing we were shown was a picture of the Park more than 10 years ago: it was a desert. Construction started in 2003 and after 10 years we can find a technology park cooperating with the nearby Klagenfut university, a built-in start up incubator and 4 kindergartens for a total amount of 2500 employees. The project for the next 10 years is to double that capacity with a cost of 80 to 100 millions Euros. They will start building in a month. The new buildings will be perfectly integrated with nature (they will be hidden under the ground and you will be able to walk over the roof).
Still they envy Italy for our lifestyle, our sense of taste, our food and our beautiful cities and environment and they say they do understand, for that reason, why Italian people often regret to move abroad.
If you want to try to be selected for a place in the incubator (that seemed to be totally free, but I’m still a little bit confused about that) you will need to have an innovative idea, the intention to establish a business in Carinthia and one of the members of the team needs to have an academic background.
They offer free of cost infrastructure, consulting and network and an insterest free loan.
The most interesting thing is their open door policies that really allows spillovers between the many actors involved: some rooms are shared by students, start up incubator and firms.
As they told us, 1+1=11: the result of a successful interaction!
