Growth Academy is the worldwide leader in open and globally neutral knowledge for innovation entrepreneurship ecosystem actors and users. We focus on building a 360 degree understanding about startups and the journey through various perspectives and connecting all relevant startup related topics along with links to further keywords, resources and tools, for further self learnings and for taking theory to action.

Today, we are celebrating Startup Commons' involvement in MyData Global’s recently published paper, Understanding MyData Operators. It is a foundational step on a roadmap towards a human-centric personal data infrastructure that involved 34 experts and was supported by 48 personal data operators in 15 countries. The MyData vision published in 2015, describes operators as actors in personal data ecosystems, that provide infrastructure for human-centric personal data management and governance.

Growth Academy is the worldwide leader in open and globally neutral knowledge for innovation entrepreneurship ecosystem actors and users. We focus on building a 360 degree understanding about startups and the journey through various perspectives and connects all relevant startup related topics along with links to further keywords, resources and tools, for further self learnings and for taking theory to action. We specialise in data-driven certifications for professionals and organisations looking to effectively support entrepreneurs and startups.

​Dear friends of Startup Commons,

The world is focused on combating the immediate economic damages of global COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of entrepreneurship and innovation, - local, state, regional and national governments, private and NGO entities, along with many individual people with different profiles, are doing whatever needs to be done to protect their entrepreneurial communities.

Most of current focus is on all the immediate actions needed that can mitigate business damages: direct loans & grants, emergency business advice, network creation, pooling of resources, new channels to bring concerns, ideas and recommendations to government and industry leaders to make entrepreneurs voices heard, etc. And the spirit and action of true collaboration is at all time high.

In our own work with ecosystem developers and builders spread out in five continents, we too have been virtually attending in the enormous effort the best we can.

Ecosystems, as the invisible infrastructures, mostly manually coordinated and often not properly equipped even in normal conditions, with even more limited resources to match the current circumstances, compared to what are expectations, - trying to solve challenges with many interdependencies: flow of talent, pool of supporting providers, resources and information.

All these efforts need to get properly orchestrated so that the ecosystem as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts separately.

Depending on parts of the world and the role in question, so focus on giving immediate and accurate responses to tackle most pressing issues now, - where others are also already moving their strategic efforts to focus on the future. To start planning how ecosystem development efforts can contribute towards reactivate and rebuilding the local economy.

A key question facing us all after COVID19 unprecedented pandemic is; how will ecosystem developers, builders and operators do ecosystem development differently?

At Startup Commons, we believe that rebuilding the economy via innovation, entrepreneurship and ecosystem development needs to make ecosystems more structured, well equipped, more transparent and more efficient.

The use of scarce resources, improving their ability to cope with future disasters like we are living now, and even become a part of a collaborative global solution to rebound the economy in a much healthier form than before.

Startup  Commons, as a business operating globally in the context of innovation and entrepreneurship since 2009, has been consistently recommending wherever we work the importance of implementing two strategies:

• Implementation and development of a sustainable and long term focused ecosystem operator entity, as a neutral operative organisation, to help pool limited resources and coordinate ecosystem functions & connections at different levels, coordinate the ecosystem information flow and keep an inventory of development objectives, their progress and outcomes. Where the ecosystem operator is also a link to other ecosystem operators at other local, state, national and global ecosystems, and is governed by an elected board of key Ecosystem Forum members. Learn more...
• Designing and development of a digital strategy for ecosystem development that makes the ecosystem more interoperable and connected not only among ecosystem actors but also with other sectors and countries, while also brings more efficient methods for data collection, ecosystem analytics, benchmarking and therefore delivering ecosystem intelligence. Learn more...

In essence, those who take care of others, need to be equipped properly to actually do so and taken care of as well.

Cities, regions, states and countries will need to invest significantly to rebuild their economies, now is the time to focus on setting up the foundations towards building the new infrastructures that all ecosystems deserve, to make sure wasting limited resources is avoided. An infrastructure for ecosystem builders to effectively support entrepreneurship and innovation, where these ecosystem infrastructures are a key drivers and stabilisers of economic growth and prosperity.

Without serious investment in physical infrastructures like; roads, bridges, ports, hydro-electric plants, fibre-optic cabling, etc., no country can deliver sustainable economic growth. - The same applies to the digital era, where most importantly, it is the connectivity that counts and where data is the new accumulating and reusable asset to build new and more sustainable economic value and activity. 

It is impossible to imagine a country, sector, industry or area of endeavour that cannot benefit from digital infrastructure, and the services enabled by digital technology are economic growth drivers, job creators, talent magnets and big sources of exports.

For years, Startup Commons has validated these ecosystem building blocks via tens of ecosystem development workshops, consulting and projects with 30+ ecosystems around the world, where we have also transformed all this knowledge into digital eLearning resources as well. - Similar to Growth Academy - but for ecosystem development. 

As it is becoming more necessary than ever to help ecosystem builders, developers and operators understand this new paradigm, - again, appealing to our responsibility and mission to scale innovation entrepreneurship globally via ecosystem development, today we have decided to also make Startup Commons Ecosystem Development Academy globally open for free - with the goal to help educate, empower and inspire the current and future generation of ecosystem builders, developers and operators, along with any individuals and entities who focus on economic development via entrepreneurship, innovation for new job creation and to attract investments.

Once we leave the “panic mode” behind, it is time to focus on “the day after” - to produce a well-planned rebuilding ecosystem strategy that helps achieve a resilient ecosystem. Meanwhile, we have set up a special recovery online taskforce ready to be released wherever required to assist case by case.

Sitting on the same side of the table, together with you and your partners, it is time to reset your ecosystem to new normal. We are all in this together!


Óscar Ramírez,
CEO, Startup Commons

Dear friends of Startup Commons,

Imagine if there would not be public parks, internet would be a commercial product with proprietary limitations or if we would not have Linux, Android, WordPress, Wikipedia, Barcode, etc. I think we all would agree, that we simple would not have the internet and access to knowledge and solutions built on top of those as we have today.

We at Startup Commons believe that not only should globally neutral innovation entrepreneurship knowledge be free to the world, but it should also be properly organized. And that the best way to make it possible, is by collaborative open development, supported by logical open standard framework and collaborative structures.

Today, more than ever - together we can achieve more with less and faster. Where we can together help to start preparing people to new normal and towards rebuilding the economy. 

How are we doing it?

We are producing slide presentations, webinars and booklets, where all materials are produced via open collaboration. Everyone have rights to the materials under creative commons licensing, to be able to publish, edit, iterate and distribute materials for free, and to create education programs, eLearning platforms, courses etc. based on this content. Offered for free, as paid education, or as part of other free or commercial solutions. Delivered via different channels; online, in person, virtually etc.

1. Using globally neutral, open standard startup development phases framework for indexing and narrative. 
2. Using existing content and curriculum​ as a summarizing and iteratively developed core version and 
3. Crowdsource and collaboratively create additional topics, content and editing, by inviting interested topic experts and editors to write or refine text from their favourite topics.
4. Together we curate, moderate and confirm content for next official published versions by version numbering.

We are inviting all type of contributors that can participate into different focus areas: making translations, designing and improving visualizations, adding new content, becoming education partner, eLearning content integration, etc.

Where can you start?

We are collecting resources in our public repository on Trello and we invite to join to Open Innovation Entrepreneurship Curriculum conversations on OIEC Slack!

Our main objective is to build an interactive, systematically evolving and hence sustainable repository to help build the "index" of the overall innovation entrepreneurship journey and "an executive summary" view of all the key topics and contents. For that reason, we welcome your sincere and constructive feedback for creating an useful resource for all entrepreneurs in the world!

We Focus On Progress

Considering our ambition of global availability and use, surely we’re only getting started, but we’ve also taken great steps already:

• 1400+ users consuming the eLearning curriculum on our platform, more offline in person and new eLearning platforms being setup by others
• Translated or translation in progress in five languages: Spanish, French, Indian, Arabic and Portuguese
• First pool of Certified Trainers​
• 7 certified organisations in 7 countries: Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Norway and Portugal

During the current global crisis, all Startup Commons online innovation entrepreneurship curriculum courses are made globally available for free.​

Dear friends of Startup Commons,

As COVID-19 spreads at a rapid rate, we want to inform you on how we are addressing this unprecedented challenge. Our Startup Commons family is spread across the world: our staff, partners, contributors, clients, etc. and we know that many people in the communities in which we operate have already been affected.

As a company operating globally, we have lived and faced many challenges throughout our extensive experience. And as entrepreneurs, we have lived through financial crises like dot com bust, 9/11 and 2008 in our own businesses earlier. This is an extraordinary situation that forces us to give our best at this difficult time, understanding and valuing our position in the world so far but also analysing, committing and taking action about how we can contribute to cope with this situation now and how we can positively impact the future to help overcome tragedies like the one we are experiencing now.

This fight against COVID-19 has health but also social and economic implications. Many people are losing their jobs and many businesses are closing. We at Startup Commons, as a company operating in the innovation entrepreneurship scene, are here to serve individuals and organisations that are working towards promoting innovation and entrepreneurship with a target to democratise and scale entrepreneurship and innovation for new opportunities, job creation and producing more innovative companies that can also provide solutions for challenges like this terrible thread we are suffering now.

While in most parts of the world, at the moment we are faced with the uncertainty and negative impacts of COVID-19, from our experience and also statistics from the past, we also know that once the world rebounds, it will always come with more new opportunities and more and more innovative companies.
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That’s the reason why for now, we have decided to open and make all Startup Commons online innovation entrepreneurship curriculum courses globally available for free to create an opportunity for anyone from anywhere in the world, to be better prepared for the positive opportunities during and after this pandemic. From our humble position, only by opening as fully free for everyone, we will be contributing to empower people and organisations towards building a more vibrant business environment for entrepreneurs, startups and SMEs in general, and also for individuals to create new opportunities, jobs and new businesses.

Startup Commons has developed the innovation entrepreneurship curriculum fully as an ‘open source’ resource and in the following weeks, we will work hard to strengthen our team to support in a more effective way our global open community and to reach out even further into every corner of the world, with the aim to spread this content faster than COVID-19 and eventually help as many people as possible to overcome this hard economic situation.

Finally, on behalf of our whole Startup Commons team, we want to send our warmest support to any affected family and ask that you take the necessary precautions to stay healthy by following the recommendations of the health authorities.

​
Óscar Ramírez, CEO
Startup Commons

Startup Commons launching Ecosystem Development Academy
Startup Commons is launching Ecosystem Development Academy based on our over 10 years of field experience and working 'on the ground' with over 30 startup ecosystems around the world since 2014, varying from early stage to more mature levels.

Ecosystem development as an 'industry' is evolving with significant impact on the economic development and prosperity of societies at large. Its performance is a key engine to generate new and more innovative companies, attract talent and investment and employment fitting the needs that digital economy demands. Startup ecosystems are the "R&D departments" of Smart Cities.

It becomes more necessary than ever to understand the mechanisms and dynamics of startup ecosystems:

Founders looking for co-founders, talent looking for ideas and support, investors looking to invest, companies looking for partners, lenders looking to provide working capital, corporates looking new innovations to existing problems and opportunities for their customers and markets.

The list goes on and on.

What is the Ecosystem Development Academy about?

During our past five years, we have globally validated that those looking after the ecosystem development are missing a holistic structure and digital solutions that are able to connect all the dots and bring more efficiency to all ecosystem stakeholders.

Few of the key challenges are the lack of structuring the knowledge that already exists out there are: 

• vague and random terminology among ecosystem actors,
• how to be heard in the middle of the noise,
• how to stop wasting limited resources and stop "reinventing the wheel"
• how to align agendas and implement a real working model as part of a multi stakeholder environment
• how to measure ecosystem development and track impact and output measures
• and last but not least, how to leverage digital to enable ecosystem data collection, access and analytics that can support decision making for better policies, funding instruments, new services, activities, etc.

In our mission to scale innovation entrepreneurship globally via ecosystem development, - our commitment is to deploy the most complete globally neutral training program in the world for ecosystem development, - to educate and empower the current and future generation of ecosystem builders, developers and operators, along with any individuals and entities who focus on economic development via entrepreneurship, innovation for new job creation and to attract investments. Including actors from function like policy makers, incubators, accelerators, corporates, universities, investors, tech parks, business schools, researchers, etc.

Through a series of four live webinars, we seek to accelerate the pace of ecosystem development and growth by empowering participants with practical framework, globally validated knowledge, KPI's and tools for ecosystem orchestration to better support innovation entrepreneurship and increase the likelihood of generating more innovative companies in volume.

Ecosystem Development Academy include four Modules that are delivered in four separate live webinar sessions

Schedule: 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st of October at 4:30 PM CET.

Duration: 2.5 - 3h per module.

Total price of 499 EUR per person.

Price include presentation materials, tools, frameworks, documentation and live webinar session recordings.​

Joining the webinars as a team? Get 20% discount for groups of three or more people.

For additional information and questions, leave your message here​.

This live webinar along with all tools and materials provided along with it, is based on our 'on-site' Ecosystem Development Workshop - format and materials (value 9 500 EUR), that we have provided, iterated and validated over past five years with dozens of ecosystems globally.

There are more than 4 500 cities in the world with population over 100 000 people and more than 500 with population over 1M people.

By expanding our 'on-site' ecosystem development workshop and consulting approach into more affordable and scalable webinar series, we make this knowledge available to all ecosystems around the world, to help align, connect and accelerate more ecosystems development that we could ever be able to reach with analogue means.

Don't miss out this opportunity to gain the perspective and experience you need to start making the impact that your ecosystem needs.

Taking the journey with Startup Commons will give your ecosystem a more efficient way to develop and thrive.

​As we are preparing for the second half of 2019, we have seen more and more requests, plans and developments around digital transformation within the startup ecosystems we are working with, where many are seeing the benefits of the open standards based digital approach to gain efficiency and to embrace common objectives to become digitally connected and truy data-driven for in their ecosystem orchestration and development.

"Ecosystem Development and orchestration is complex and challenging, in digital level it becomes even more unforgiving, where any vagueness needs to become specific and clearly defined. - As such it's also very important to create a common language between the technical teams; system admins, software developers, technical project leads etc. and ecosystem development and operations teams from the non technical side; operations manager, project managers, policy makers etc."

In majority of ecosystems there exists silos with steep gaps in between "tech stuff" and "business operations", where very little common understanding, language and operative development exist between these two. 

At the same time, if "business operations teams" don't understand how the digital world and tech stuff work in practise, what are the modern technical capabilities and how these technologies are evolving, it's hard to communicate how the digital solutions should be build. At the same time if "tech teams" don't understand what should be built, why and how it should work?, - it's close to impossible to build anything that actually works as expected in ecosystem level.

​Different ecosystems around the world have already realized that they can no longer operate in application silos as it will essentially kill real process level collaboration and trust between organizations that is needed to collaborate in practise to build strong ecosystems together.

​And that portals alone bring limited solutions without infrastructure underneath making the data flow between different applications and the portal. Using humans to manually move data between silos is not what digital ecosystems are about.

Also by choosing to expand this ecosystem collaboration efforts for data connectivity to regional, national and global level, - to build open data model standards for how these applications can share data, all collaborating ecosystem actors in different functions functions, can start creating and collaboratively developing a common digital language to lay the groundwork for enhancing trust in data and have models for scaling their technologies and use of these technologies effectively. 

This Open Standards model is emerging as a fundamental prerequisite prior to be able to adopt any new technology application or solution for ecosystem management and development. Open Standard Data Models help ecosystem actors connect and enable the flow of data in any key information within and between ecosystem applications; the movement of talents, startups, activities, services, etc. extending outside their own systems.

With this approach, they are taking the crucial first step toward their (eco)system interoperability, which is key to enhancing collaborations and building locally, globally and business vertical connected ecosystems.
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Additionally, for data to be productive in various uses within an ecosystem, open standards provide structure for consistency to the vast amount of data already available and new data being collected for various research, reporting, analytics, matching, evaluation, registration, funding etc. purposes, as well as to move any data easily between disparate, manual and/or automated systems.

As ecosystem actors are evaluating the enrichment of the data they’re collecting, standards ensure that efficiency, connectivity and sharing is always an "built-in".

Startup Commons is doing a FREE webinar on Tuesday, July 9th, 2019, 3 - 5.00 pm CEST where we will discuss about these topics and will launch 'The Declaration of Open Standards Ecosystem Framework Principles' -model, to ignite building a global movement that enables, supports and facilitates ecosystem interoperability.

In addition we will be discussing the technical implications behind this approach and our next level effort to support volume of local ecosystems digital transformation journeys in more iterative step by step approach, but globally scalable way.