2009: a great year for Euroalert.net community

An important year for Euroalert.net reaches its end. In 2009, the Euroalert community has established itself throughout Europe and this year has also been full of achievements that we have wanted to share with you from this blog, because our success is also yours.

We began the year announcing you that Euroalert.net had become a case study in the book Web 2.0: The Business Model. . This book on business models in Web 2.0 by U.S. publisher Springer devoted the chapter "Doing business by selling free services" to Euroalert, to describe the innovative features of our business model that allow us to offer you daily and free of charge the best information contents about the European Union.

This has not been the only time that Euroalert.net has served as an example or case study: in autumn and we gave you the news that, invited by the spanish Ministry of Industry, we were participating in a round table on Open Government that took place in FICOD 09 , the International Forum of Digital Contents. "O-gov: creating value through the reuse of public sector information" was the title of the round table in which José Luis Marín talked about how in Euroalert.net we approach public information generated by the community institutions to the user in several countries in Europe , processing it and redistributing it through our innovative technology.

In June, we changed the appearance of Euroalert.net to accommodate it to a new service: the section on trade opportunities with European Multilateral Organizations, with which Euroalert.net continued growing in information contents. Since then, Euroalert.net also offers tenders and contracts published by EuropeAid , publishes business opportunities and contracts of the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the EBRD Tenders and Contracts.

In summer, we boosted our corporate social responsibility while announcing that we became sponsors of the football team of the Colegio La Salle de Valladolid, who wears sweaters with the logo of Euroalert.net. But this announcement came shortly before a trip that was very important for us: the one we did in October to attend the Open Days 2009 in Brussels, where we had the opportunity to cover numerous events and met a good number of community members of Euroalert.


The fact is that this year we have travelled a lot. We wanted Euroalert.net services to be known throughout Europe, and that is why we did not only go to Brussels to attend to the biggest event in European cities and regions, but we've been almost every month in the Belgian capital for various reasons, including our assistance to the Information Day Objective 1.2 ICT in FP7 of the European Union, with the aim of promoting the participation of Euroalert.net in some of the consortia that were being formed for Call 5 of the Seventh Framework Program.

The portuguese capital has been another of our stops. Shortly before leaving for the Open Days, we told you that we were going to Lisbon as well as to promote the services of Euroalert.net and visiting multiple subscribers, as part of the business delegation of Castile and Leon who accompanied Juan Vicente Herrera on his trip to our neighboring country and participated in business meetings organized by ADE International EXCAL, the Junta de Castilla y León agency for external promotion.

In fact, the result of this trip was another achievement of Euroalert.net this year: the agreement for the distribution of Euroalert.net services in Portugal through Infosistema Company.

On the other hand, if last year and created our Facebook page, this year we took the leap to Twitter, where you can follow updates from all contents of Euroalert, although so far only for the international version.

Our successes are your successes. Thanks for all you've got with us this year, and we sincerely hope that next year you will continue giving us many more successes. We have many surprises and new servives ready to make Euroalert even more useful for you all in 2010.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Innovation, a very sexy thing...

Here we are. The Euroalert.net crowd is already in Brussels is prepared to tell you first hand what happens in OPEN DAYS 2009. And we start from the Charlemagne building, where the Open Days University is being held. Here, we find Pregen Gregersen's conference Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority, of the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs.



Gregersen has focused his speech, entitled "Restoring growth through innovation", on a shocking sentence: "Innovation is a very sexy thing...". And it's sexy because it can bring many benefits to societies. He has insisted that, fortunately, and despite the recession, the EU structural funds assigned to innovation is a huge amoint, but he says that the key is focusing these resources and apply the results through an efficient regional policy.

Gregersen has not forgotten something that we have always supported from Euroalert.net: new technologies are important for development, but they are not everything. Strengthen the basis, facilitate the dissemination and understanding of these new technologies, foster innovation, investment in human capital and encourage entrepreneurship are key to get a general growth in the European Union from the lowest levels: the regions.

We are glad to see that we are not the only who bet on open knowledge as a way to share progress and growth. And innovation, of course, is part of the knowledge that no one should stop sharing.

Euroalert at B-Creative: Creativity, the secret of growth

As we announced a few weeks ago, among 5th and 7th October the Euroalert.net crowd we will be attending to Open Days 2009 in Brussels. Open Days is the biggest event for Europe's regions and cities, and it will feature more than 100 seminars, workshops, debates, exhibitions and meetings with 7,000 participants, expected in Brussels alone.

And one of the workshops that we are going to specially cover is B-Creative: Creative industry for restoring growth in Europe's regions, which will take place on 7th October at La Cambre, école nationale supérieure des arts visuels.

This event is organized by Lisbon Regions Network & Partners, and it will underline the potential that cultural and creative industries, such as music, fashion, design, architecture, and gaming, offer for EU's economy and competitiveness. Open Days 2009 aim to facilitate exchange, debate and networking among Europe’s experts and decision-makers in regional and local development from the public, private and financial sector, and creative industry is essential for that growth.

The Lisbon Regions Network is a network of 15 ambitious high performing regions with a shared interest in the delivery of the Lisbon Strategy at regional and local level:


Aquitaine Region, Bratislava Self-Governing Region, Brussels Capital Region, Helsinki Region, Land Hessen, Lisbon & Tagus Valley Region, Regio Randstad, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Riga City and Region, Slovenian Business & Research Association, Sofia Municipality, Stockholm Region, Valencian Region, West Midlands and Wielkopolska Region compose this ambitious group of networked regions.

As innovation is a strong value of Euroalert.net corporate culture, we have always bet on creative industry as a key engine for social and economic development, and even more in 2009, which is the European Year for Creativity and Innovation.

We are really looking forward to assist to B-Creative and share experiences about how people and ideas can create growth in our societies, and how can regional governments give a boost to this development.

Maybe we can meet there? Drop us an email to info@euroalert.net

OPEN DAYS 2009... here we go!

"The largest event for the regions and cities of Europe". That's how people call it. And it is waiting for us. This is not the first year that we collect information about the OPEN DAYS. In 2008, we offered several pieces of news about OPEN DAYS, but in fact we have been reporting on the Week of Regions and Cities of Europe in our spanish version since 2006.

This year we want to go one step further,and so, some members of the Euroalert.net team are moving to Brussels from 5 to 8 October 2009 to see first hand whether is true or not that is the OPEN DAYS the most important event for European cities and regions.

Moreover, of course, we are going to Brussels to offer you the best coverage of what is about to happen there: workshops, conferences, round tables and cultural activities will take place in Brussels those days to celebrate the European Week of Regions and Cities, OPEN DAYS 2009.

We also know that many of our readers and subscribers will be around, so it's a great oportunity for us to meet you: just send us an e-mail and we will try to make an appointment with you.

We will go on telling you what will our agenda for those days. Meanwhile, we'd like you to send us suggestions on the items that you find more relevant, in order that we pay more attention to them among the many possibilities offered by OPEN DAYS 2009: we want to maximize our participation and to offer you what really interest you.

By the way! The title of the Open Days 2009 is "Global Challenges, European responses" ... In Euroalert.net, as you see, our bigger challenge offering you better information and services day after day.