GOING GLOBAL 

In the late 1990's, a number of organisations inspired by CONNECT in San Diego were founded in Northern Europe, in particular Connect Scotland and CONNECT Sweden.

At the same time, groups from around the world were beating a path to CONNECT's door, drawn by press reports of San Diego's transformation from a sleepy Navy town into a high-tech center. In addition, a number of people at UCSD, notably Associate Vice Chancellor Mary Walshok, a co-founder of CONNECT in 1985, had a strong interest in regional innovation systems worldwide.

These influences and interests came together in the founding of Global CONNECT in 2003.

Global CONNECT seeks to work with regions around the world to understand and further develop their innovation systems. We believe that linking these regions through the Global CONNECT membership network serves the interests of all regions, including San Diego.

ATP Innnovations has been awarded NBIA 'Soft Landings International Incubator' designation.

The National Business Incubation association (NBIA), the world's leading organisation advancing business incubation and entrepreneurship, has awarded its first Soft Landings designations to ATP Innovations in Sydney, Australia, and Wallonia Space Logistics in Liege, Belgium. Through this new program, NBIA recognises incubators that are especially capable at helping nondomestic companies enter the incubator's domestic market.

ATP Innovations and Wallonia were chosen for their slate of business services for nondomestic firms and their demonstrated success at helping firms enter their markets, says Tim Kresse, director of membership.

Incubating nondomestic firms takes more than the standard set of incubation services, Kresse notes. "Soft Landings is a recognition of an incubator's focus on welcoming nondomestic firms into their domestic market with cultural translation services, help getting through red tape, and other programs," he says. To learn how ATP and Wallonia accomplish those missions, visit their Web sites at ATP Innovations and Wallonia, respectively.

This inaugural award was established in recognition of the growing interest and need for business incubators to have a capacity to serve foreign companies (companies from outside their domestic markets),

The purpose of this program is to ensure that businesses entering or expanding into a new country can receive an introduction to that country’s business practices and culture. These programs can speed up foreign companies’ learning processes and help them more quickly and efficiently make contacts in the new country and access resources necessary for them to meet their business goals. In effect, these foreign firms experience a 'soft landing' when entering the new country.

This designation identifies ATP Innovations as a world class commercialisation hub. It further strengthens and cements our World Innovation Network initiative. to establish and promote global market opportunities for emerging technology companies.