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EIT Digital Accelerator companies at the European Innovation Day in the Computer History Museum.

CEO Willem Jonker discussing with EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger at the Scalup Summit.

EIT Digital Silicon Valley Hub was busy participating in Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley (SEC2SV) week, as well as launching a major new initiative for trans-atlantic federated software-defined network (SDN) testbed.

EIT Digital was a proud partner of SEC2SV bringing together EU policy makers, startups, European unicorns ($1B+ valuation companies) and corporations to meet Silicon Valley stakeholders during 21-25 September, 2015. This event was hosted in partnership with Mind the Bridge and the European Union, along with large corporates like Pfizer and Telecom Italia.  

The first day kicked-off with European Innovation Day, which had over 400 attendees and five EIT Digital Accelerator companies including KonuxJUSPVaaraniHeiaHeia and Kopjra. The day was filled with inspiring speakers like Julie Hanna, The Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship of US Government, and a Silicon Valley icon Larry Sonsini who was involved in the early inception of Apple, Google, and Airbnb. EIT Digital CEO Willem Jonker moderated a panel on Startup creation and Universities entitled “Does the partnership work?” with panelists from UC Berkeley, StanfordX and University of Cambridge. 

The inspiration continued with the Scaleup Summit where EIT Digital startups had action packed workshops to dig deep into hiring and growth strategy, market entry and sales in US, M&A, and fundraising. Other highlights included discussions with EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger, President of Estonia Toomas Ilves, Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper, as well as visits to Apple, Airbnb, Andreessen-Horowitz, and the Silicon Valley Bank.

In only four days we were able to connect with leading European decision makers and Tier 1 Silicon Valley VCs. Thank you EIT Digital!”, said Andreas Kunze, CEO of Konux, after five intense days of SEC2SV.

Federated SDN Testbed operational by end of 2015

The other major event of the week was the EIT Digital Federated SDN Testbed kick-off, which took place in EIT Digital Silicon Valley Hub office at Rocket Space in San Francisco. The project aims at creating a federated testbed that can be used by participating companies and third parties to experiment and certify SDN equipment, functions and services. Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, University of Bologna and Turin Polytechnic have already committed resources and other partners from Europe and US are expected the join the programme in the coming months.

The first core of the Federated SDN Testbed is expected to become operational at the end of 2015, and will expand in 2016 opening to third parties. EIT Digital is bringing to the Federated Test Bed results from previous and current projects in the SDN area. Furthermore, EIT Digital has won the EU bid with the SOFTFire project to develop a distributed SDN/NFV testbed in Europe and to connect it to other testbeds in US and Asia.

EIT Digital Silicon Valley Hub Director Marko Turpeinen was proud about the results: “Participating startups got to experience the Silicon Valley mindset first hand through intense workshops and meeting local coaches and investors, and the Federated SDN testbed will concretely bridge key technology infrastructures across USA and Europe.

EIT Digital Silicon Valley will have a busy October supporting two big Health and Well Being Conferences in Silicon Valley. The Health 2.0 Fall Conference on October 4-7th will exhibit new product demos, discussion driven by health IT leaders, and explore areas in need of improvement in health care today. HealthTech Silicon Valley Conference on Oct 27 - 28th concentrates on the  intersection of Technology and Healthcare.

Please reach out to us if you are interested in participating or would like more information.

Contact:
Silicon Valley Hub Director 
Marko Turpeinen

Author - Aparna Sain

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