International Entrepreneurship Leaders Convene at IE School of Science and Technology to Launch Rise Europe Summit
The event pooled leaders from Rise Europe, CleanTech for Iberia, South Summit and IE University.
Leading entrepreneurial voices, international dignitaries and European tech incubators convened Tuesday night at the inauguration of the Rise Europe Summit in Madrid, hosted by IE School of Science and Technology.
The event, which included a keynote address from Carme Artigas Co-Chair AI Advisory Board, at the Office of the General Secretary of the UN, put IE University at the center of the European tech entrepreneurship conversation as one of the world’s only entrepreneurially-driven, rigorous polytechnics.
Following IE University President Santiago Iñiguez’s welcome, Artigas took the stage to outline the current landscape of European competitiveness in the use of AI, highlighting that only 8% of European companies are currently using generative AI.
“We are a continent that has given birth to many renaissances before, now with generative AI we are at the dawn of a new one,” said Artigas, former Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence of the Government of Spain.
The Rise Europe Summit launch pooled the members of Rise Europe, a network of 13 countries and 20 institutions, representing 32000 entrepreneurs from Europe, with members of Cleantech for Iberia, who attended the IE Impact Xcelerator’s CleanTech Innovation Collider at IE School of Science and Technology earlier in the day, along with executives from South Summit, recognized as one of the world’s leading entrepreneurship and innovation networks.
Also on hand at the Rise Europe launch: Marisa Schneider from UnternehmerTUM, Michael Hähnle - Managing Director AplusB SCALEup & Investment, Irene Fialka - CEO INiTS / Health Hub Vienna, Leah Thompson - Entrepreneurship Hub Lead at Oxford University, Jean-Michel Dalle - Director at Agoranov, and Alberto Toril - Manager at CleanTech for Iberia—to name a few.
IE School of Science and Technology Dean Ikhlaq Sidhu moderated the panel “Vision 2030 for the EU Tech Entrepreneurship Ecosystem” with Maria Benjumea, President of South Summit, Lisa Ericsson, Head of KTH Innovation (Sweden), Mikkel Sorensen, Managing Director of DTU Skylab (Denmark) and Juan José Güemes, President of IE Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IE University.
Panelists asserted that Europe’s ambition is to match the innovativeness of countries like the USA and China by finding ways for European start-ups to scale and become sustainable global market leaders.
Rise Europe seeks to empower the next generation of start-ups to secure long-term prosperity in Europe. Hosted by IE University, the focus of this year's summit will be the creation of a joint Vision for Europe 2030, public affairs activities in favor of start-up scaling, a pan-European AI incubation program and the improvement of cross-national matchmaking of start-ups and corporates.