Opportunities for investment and development of innovation in Thessaloniki
As stated by Manish Kothari, co-founder of First Spark Ventures, by 2050, the planet will be home to 10 billion people. people, so food supply and energy efficiency should be improved.
“I think the raw IQ in the business ecosystem of Thessaloniki is very strong. There is passion, drive and raw IQ. You need to convert this to IP (intellectual property). (…) You don’t have the IP process yet, and you need capital to develop it” pointed out today, from Thessaloniki, the Manis Kotari, co-founder – together with its former managing director GoogleEric Schmidt’s “First Spark Ventures“, the world’s largest venture capital in the field of deep tech early stage investments.
Speaking to 9th Technology ForumThe Manis Kotari pointed out that in the 21st century, the biggest companies and investment areas are located at the “intersections”: the points where genes, atoms and bits, physical and digital worlds intersect, where new medicines are developed using computational science. Artificial Intelligence. And the Thessaloniki can, according to Kotari, develop an advantage in these “cross-sections”.
“I visited her university yesterday Thessaloniki and I saw that you have a medical school, an engineering school and a business school there. You are perfectly placed in this city and at this university to take advantage of these intersections. That’s where the “game” is played today, that’s where we focus as a venture capital fund” said Manis Kotari, who has also served as its president SRI Internationalformerly known as the Stanford Research Institute, a flagship research non-profit organization of Silicon Valleyresponsible for much of the technology we use today, such as the computer mouse, the vacuum tube, the Intuitive surgerythe Hue(Apple’s digital assistant) Siri and many other technologies.
Other business ideas that could fire First Spark’s investment reflexes come from the digital world: “One of the good news in Ukraine was that (the attackers) were not able to destroy the Internet (citizens’ access to it), thanks to Starlink, the low-orbit satellites that is. So they can be created (using such features) privately GPSwith a sensitivity of 10 centimeters, which is cyber-safe, do they work inside and outside the house, in Athens or New York or anywhere in the world?’ he wondered.
On the question of whether, in today’s difficult times, it is a good time for investment and development of innovation, Mr Manis Kotari he answered that yes, the conditions favor innovation. The whole world is now identifying similar problems, he said, so innovators can address much larger markets.
Until the 2050, he explained, an estimated 10 billion people will inhabit the planet, so food supply, energy efficiency, and even air conditioning will need to be improved. Life expectancy and sure to reach the next approx 30 years to 76 years. Climate change and epidemics all over the planet. So is the movement of populations to the cities, which after a short period of slowdown due to the pandemic, is starting again, with a perspective of 2050 two out of three people on the planet live in cities.
Moreover, something very important, for the first time the world as a whole (the 90% to be exact), even including large countries like India, is now below population replacement/replacement rate and has fewer workers. This in Europe and the USA became close to 2000in India it actually happened for the first time this year, in China it happened around 2010.
So we are now at a point where the whole world has the same need, which is to improve productivity, because we will not have the manpower to survive and meet our needs. “In terms of innovation, this is very good because it is much more difficult to innovate when the needs of each region are different. When we all have the same objective issues, the market grows” write down.
THE Chicken he also pointed out that what was not yet possible five or two-three years ago, today may be completely feasible. A characteristic example, he said, is Machine Learning, which five years ago you had to have a relevant PhD to use it, while today you can use – with open source systems – even 13-year-old children, who participate in related competitions. Or the CRISP-Ri.e. gene editing: until two years ago, the 90% of the relevant experiments were failing, while today the 90% succeeds, which means that the technology is now “productizable”. In addition, whether you are in EU either on USA, there are huge funds available -4 billion. euros only in new government funding – for so-called translational research. “It’s a great time for investment and business,” he concluded