Until recently Vienna hasn’t generally been known in Europe as a startup hub, but this week has blown that perception out of the water. What appears to be going on is the clear emergence of Vienna as kind of bridge between Eastern and Central Europe on the one hand and the gravitational pull of London and Berlin’s startup ecosystems in Western Europe. The evidence was clear this week, as over 500 people and 50 startups packed into an 18th century ballroom for five days in the combined conference and startup competition billed as Startup Week Europe. There are plenty of pretenders to that nom du clure, but Vienna has proved an awesome hub for the region and the event is sure to take its place in the panoply of European tech conferences now emerging – and appropriately, a minute’s silence was held today in honour of Steve Jobs. The eventual winner of the startups competition was Mysugr, a startup which appears to have captured the zeitgeist of mobile, health and social gaming.
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Mike Butcher (M.B.E.), formerly Editor-at-large of TechCrunch, has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder of TheEuropas.com (Top 100 listing of European startups); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Startup Coalition. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.

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