We are teaching Prague to invest better in innovation in business and education, says the head of the Prague Innovation Institute
Maybe we will start with a brief introduction to the Prague Innovation Institute. What are his goals?
In most Czech regions, innovation centers have been established in the last twenty years, which ensure the transfer of knowledge from science and research to business, and also function as project incubators. In the regions, they are often the only actors of this kind. This cannot be said about Prague, because there are many private actors who are trying to do the same. But for a long time, there was no active supporter and coordinator of innovations. This is one of the reasons why the Prague Innovation Institute was established two years ago. The aim was to build an innovation structure that will be in line with regional innovation strategies and will support and link the activities of individual actors in the capital. Over the course of two years, we have created nine innovation platforms, where ideas are created to support innovation in various areas and directions. These include entrepreneurship and education, areas where Prague has not been very successful in supporting innovation.
How does the Prague Innovation Institute get involved in business support?
During the pandemic, we created the DoToho! Mentoring program, in which medium-sized entrepreneurs from Prague could have twenty hours of consultations and mentoring free of charge. A total of over 200 companies from various fields passed through the platform. The Prague Smart Accelerator project is also currently underway, which includes a grant call, the so-called Assistance Vouchers. Research organizations and companies can submit their projects, which are still at a very early stage and need investment funds for further development.
How is the distribution of subsidies within the Assistance Vouchers between individual projects?
Around eleven million crowns are allocated within the entire project, the implementers can earn hundreds of thousands of crowns and start developing their projects. We distribute money in a way that corresponds to the intentions and goals set by the innovation platforms, whether it is the development of the creative industry, biotechnology, the space industry, or the support of technologies based on artificial intelligence. In addition, we monitor the viability of projects. The program is funded by the European Union, but we would like to follow up with systematic support from Prague. We must learn to invest in business support and our own resources. Even before the establishment of the Prague Innovation Institute, the so-called Prague Innovation Vouchers existed in Prague. We are succeeding in developing a functioning grant scheme, thanks to which the funds really end up where they are.
You run the Business Innovation Center in the Škoda Palace. How do you use this space?
if it is a value-added event where interesting people from different fields can meet. We provide lectures, conferences and workshops. In cooperation with universities and colleges, we have organized Startup Night for the second time. Students and graduates of the five largest universities in Prague, who have some ideas, often met at an advanced stage of implementation, met there. When they meet, they can then lead to further cooperation – and this is exactly an example of what we want to do.
At the end of May, you are organizing the conference Innovation Vision of Prague 2030. What topics will you open there?
The conference will consist of several panels that copy our goals within the adopted strategy to support innovation. In addition to supporting business, it will need the space industry. to show how a region like Prague can benefit from space research and we want data. Renowned space engineer and our space industry developer Jan Lukačevič will help us with that. We will also focus on the creative industry and its new industries, such as animation or game development. As a developer, we have the creative industry expert Jakub Bakule. We will also deal with artificial intelligence, we cooperate on projects in this area with prg.ai or the Czech Technical University in Prague. We very much appreciate the fact that the conferences were sponsored by the Mayor of the Capital City of Prague, Zdeněk Hřib, as well as the Ministry of Science, Research and Innovation Helena Langšádlová.
You mentioned support for the space industry. What role does the Prague Innovation Institute play here?
Jan Lukačevič, with whom we have been cooperating since the end of last year, has helped us create a new innovation platform that brings together experts in the space industry. We are preparing an international professional conference in June, which will address the different involvement of the space industry and the role of Prague in the NATO defense system. In addition, we are developing the possibility of involving Prague in international knowledge and technology transfer projects, for example within the Phi-lab program with the European Space Agency (ESA).
Another area mentioned is cooperation with universities. He cooperates with CTU on the development of tools for early detection of symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, are you planning other projects with Czech universities?
We are also cooperating with Charles University as part of our largest project to support innovation in education. This is the so-called Implementation of the Regional Action Plan and Charles University is our main partner there through its Faculty of Education. We will look for other opportunities for cooperation. We can play an important role as an application guarantor for universities and their projects. What we also do very well is to find high-quality staffing for individual activities, which is a very valuable current skill, especially in connection with labor market situations.
The Prague Innovation Institute is the only center of its kind in the Czech Republic dedicated to the support of education and training. What does it look like in practice?
As part of the Implementation of the Regional Action Plan, several key issues are beginning. This is the need to provide targeted support for polytechnic education or the education of children with different mother tongues. The absence of a quickly applicable method proves to be highly problematic, especially during the war in Ukraine. In addition, we also work on the so-called principal academy, because we consider the role of primary or secondary school principal to be absolutely essential.
How would you evaluate the required development of innovations in the capital? What makes Prague strong, and where do you see shortcomings?
We are convinced that Prague needs to diversify its economy. Until recently, it was based primarily on the services offered, which will not bring any added value in the future. At the same time, Prague is extremely strong in its ability and possible events, which also have an added value in terms of tourist character. Typically, these are scientific congresses. Unlike other public entities in Europe, Prague does not yet know how to invest money very well in order to ensure its good return and also its social impact. We would like to work on these things and further develop them.
You are involved in a number of projects. How do you get the funds to finance them?
I am happy to say with exaggeration that we live on the same high value without Prague reducing our funding. The projects we implement are more than 90 percent funded by European sources. Only a certain percentage comes from the budget of the capital city of Prague, but the money is project-bound and goes, for example, to the operation of the Business Innovation Center or the development of a review portal for in-service teacher training. But this is not sustainable in the long run, because we are an organization with almost fifty regular employees and dozens of other employees. We must therefore secure institutional funding. We need Prague to understand that in our case it is not funds spent, but invested.
Bohumil Kartous has been the director of the Prague Innovation Institute since 1 July 2020. I have previously focused on the development of education in the Czech Republic. Within the think tank EDUin, he created the concept of the Audit of the Education System in the Czech Republic and regularly comments on Czech events for the Czech media. He is also a co-founder of the expert civic platform KoroNERV20, helped launch the educational startup Education Republic and, together with the DOX Center for Contemporary Culture, implemented the Synapse educational program.