Baz - Project

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Baz Ventures
Enables High Tech and Technology Transfer

Incubator Project

This page describes a project performed between 1995-99, studying a succesful system of Technological Incubators in Israel and proposing a network of Incubators suitable for Swedish circumstances. Baz Ventures now offers support in building and running incubators.

A slide presentation summarising this project is available here

Study & Report by David Nordfors:
A network of Multi-Cultural Technological Incubators in Sweden
The project received support from The Academy of Engineering Sciences - IVA/Connect, The National Office for Integration (Integrationsverket) and The University College of Karlskrona/Ronneby together with the Ministry of Industry and trade.

The aim of the project is to create a Swedish network of technological incubators for cultivating promising entrepreneurship and innovation, regardless of personal professional and ethnical background. The network of incubators will broaden the way for global entrepreneurship in Sweden by creating succesful companies, influence rules and routines in the Swedish society and making it easier for immigrants to do business, as well as promote a positive attitude towards immigration - as a source of new ideas and productivity.

The Israeli network of Technological Incubators identifies and transforms individual innovators, often newly arrived immigrants from the former Soviet Union, into entrepreneurs. The innovators contact the incubators with an idea for a Hi-Tech export product. The incubator can then help them start a company and over a two year period supply them with all the administrative and logistical support they need. This includes help with marketing and business development. The transformation from innovator into entrepreneur takes place through a hybrid of education, training and apprenticeship.

The study has

Spent half a year in the israeli system accumulating knowledge and experience, both in individual incubators and in the national management of the system
Established cooperation with Israeli expertise - incubator managers, the office of the Chief Scientist and venture capitalists
Identified and initiated discussions with potential hosting organisations who are interested in building technological incubators in Sweden
Identified and initiated discussions with potential national and international investors and commercial strategic partners

Read the bills to the Swedish Parliament in 1999, proposing national support of the project.

Read the report to the National Office for Integration (Integrationsverket), concluding the depth study in Israel and suggesting how to build multicultural incubators in Sweden (in Swedish).

Read our report from August 1998 (in English) published as a chapter in a book by the Swedish Office of Science and Technology (STATT - Sveriges Tekniska Attachéer): Kunskapsutbyte i nätverk. Forskning och utveckling som tillväxtmotor, volym I (1998):

Media & Research coverage (including links to scans & documents):

Ha'aretz 99.03.01 (daily newspaper in Hebrew, 65 000 copies)	"Swedish Incubator" >>Read it (JPG, Hebrew)
Göteborgsposten 99.01.20	"Företag i kuvös på försök" (New companies tested in incubators)
Dagen 99.01.26	"Ny modell ger invandrare jobb" (New model gives immigrants jobs)
Ny Teknik 99.11 (weekly magazine for engineers, 147 000 copies - editorial page debate article)	"Invandrare i kuvös löser våra problem" (Immigrants in incubators solve our problems) >>Read it(JPG, Swedish) >>Read it (HTML, Swedish)
Expressen 99.05.18 (daily newspaper, 327 400 copies)	"Företagarnas BB - Recept för Sverige" >>Read it (PDF, Swedish I) >>Read it (PDF, Swedish II) >>Read it (HTML, English)
Dagens Industri 99.06.19 (Daily business newspaper, 110 200 copies - 4th largest in Europe)	"Superentreprenör på Sverigevisit" (Superentrepreneur visits Sweden) >>Read it (JPG, Swedish) "'Kuvös' får bolagsidéer att utvecklas" ('Incubator' makes business ideas develop) >>Read it (JPG, Swedish) >>Read it (HTML, English)
Globes 99.10.26 (Daily business newspaper in Hebrew)	"Sweden builds Technological Incubators according to the Israeli Model" >>Read it (JPG, Hebrew)
Dagens Industri(Debatt) 99.11.18 (Daily business newspaper, 112 800 copies - 4th largest in Europe)	"Sverige borde lära av Israels företagskuvöser" (Sweden should learn from the business incubators in Israel) >>Read it (JPG, Swedish)
MBA Thesis Jan 2000 by Henrik Jansson and Per Sundström from the International School of Economics in Jönköping	"The new money machine of the entrepreneurs"- a study of the influence of the principal-agent problem on the relation between venture capitalists and incubator companies >>Read it (PDF, Swedish)