“I believe Europe has an opportunity in these challenging times to take the lead in the deep tech, and Europe’s biggest asset is its people/talent.”
In our interview with Milena Stoycheva, CEO Junior Achievement Bulgaria and Venture Network Builder at JA Europe, we had the pleasure to talk about her work, the skills needed for European start-ups to thrive on the global stage and the added value of becoming a Pledger to the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative.
As Bulgarian Minister for Innovation and Growth between 2023 and April 2024, Milena is a ‘policy-preneur’ and, very much, believes that entrepreneurial mindset and thinking needs to become part of European culture and behaviour. Venture Network Builder is creating opportunities for investment in early-stage startups that are coming through from the JA network, specifically focusing on deep tech and sustainability startups that Milena believe are the future for Europe.
“To be creators and not consumers, we need to train people to be entrepreneurial in the behaviour and thinking.”
This also means teaching artificial intelligence skills, improving digital literacy and linking these skills to entrepreneurial innovation. Technological entrepreneurship training is important to help entrepreneurs understand and use the power of technology to meet society’s needs and the market’s demand for how to transfer this technology into solutions that will work for people and the economy.
“This is becoming extremely important, because the only way we can overcome the challenge of trusting machines is by having control over them. But to do this, we need to understand how they function and how they can be designed to serve people’s needs, rather than the other way around. And if the people creating this technology don’t think this way, we won’t be able to lead and govern the trend, we’ll only be able to react to whatever changes the trend and technology itself develops.”
The challenges for tech startups
Milena explained that tech startups are often started by people who are very focused on the technology itself but lack the market insights and understanding about where the technology can fit the need.
“They’re missing the skills related to creating a team, addressing an actual business need through the technology, packaging it and converting into a business solution so that it solves the problems people have nowadays in their society, and working out how it operates in a way to actually solve that big challenge that people have. So, it’s these entrepreneurial business skills that tech startups need most.”
Comparing US startups to European ones, Milena confirmed that US startups tended to be more mature and disruptive because of their ambitious long-term goals, mentioning the advancements in space tech over the last 15 years with nothing more than a vision. “They’re breaking into new territories,” she said: “As a result of the environment that supports this type of spirit and thinking and helps them facilitate it through mentorship and funding. And this is what Europe needs to do.”
Milena’s advice to early startups was simple:
- Build a diverse team with expertise in different areas to cover all aspects of your startup
- Work with a partner to help confirm and refine your solution
- Find a way to test and validate your solution while staying adaptable
- Look for additional partners who can help you test it, since validation can be complex due to the mix of technologies and industries involved
Why did you join the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative?
Milena believes that Europe has a wealth of world-leading talent and scientific capacity, but right now it’s missing the entrepreneurial activity and commercialisation. She says the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative is critical: to bring this matter into focus, and to bring together different stakeholders and players who can act on making this transition and transformation for the economy.
“Europe’s biggest asset is its people talent, and in these challenging times, I believe Europe has an opportunity to take the lead in deep tech. Europe needs to work together to create a single market both for deep tech industry and deep tech talent development, and the creation of many companies, startups, and scaleups would be the innovative force, especially with these new technologies.”
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