Over 900 000 customers of all sizes benefit everyday from Regus services in any of our 1100 business centers across 89 countries worldwide.

Groupe Regus offers you a new way of working whether you work at home, in the office or on the road.

As partner, Regus is pleased to offer you a Businessworld Gold card giving you free and unlimited access to Regus business lounges all over the world (over 1,100 addresses available on www.regus.com, incluing :

• Internet connexion
• drinks and local press
• 10% discount on all meeting rooms and videoconferencing bookings

About EVCA Venture Capital Forum

This year’s EVCA Venture Capital Forum sees a return to cautious optimism around many aspects of our business model.

Buoyancy in the exit markets is signalling a return to good times and the opportunity for much-needed liquidity events (see session 2 ‘State of the Capital Markets’). This in turn is feeding greater interest in what venture capital can do.

Combine this with the impressive stock of latent value within European venture capital portfolios and the fact that the industry is so undercapitalised, there is a compelling story for the most forward-looking institutional investors.

Of course fundraising remains difficult in the wake of the crisis, but not impossible, and we have a large panel of VCs fresh from the road willing to share their experiences (see session 3 ‘Yes we can! Fundraising in difficult times’).

Meanwhile in policy circles, venture capital is one of the few private sector cards left to play in order to regenerate Europe’s fortunes and competitiveness on a world stage (see session 10). We’ll also be engaging with the people that make the economy – and our portfolios – tick.

Entrepreneurs. Nobody is perfect, but teams can be, and we’ll be talking about how we can become the ultimate ‘Dream teams’ (session 5). For all these reasons, the VCF 2011 comes at a tipping point for our industry. We look forward to welcoming you to Budapest in October.

By virtue of its responsibilities in the areas of compliance, controlling and establishing generally accepted practices, AFIC is one of two associations recognized by the French Financial Market Authority (AMF). Management companies must be AFIC members in order to be certified by the AMF. AFIC is the only professional association focused on the Private Equity business.

In addition to its services on behalf of members (monitoring of legal, regulatory and tax developments; research studies and statistics; training; development and communication), AFIC serves as a central hub to represent and promote the Private Equity business to institutional investors, opinion leaders and public policy makers. Through its ongoing discussions, AFIC helps to improve the financing of the economy, notably for small business, and to promote economic growth and entrepreneurial spirit.

Private Equity supports a significant portion of employment in France and represents one of the main growth drivers for the French economy. In 2010, AFIC’s members invested more than €6.6 billion in more than 1,650 companies. Accounting for 20% of the European market, the French Private Equity business is the largest in Continental Europe and the third-largest worldwide.

European SME Week 2011  aims to:

• provide information on what the EU and national, regional and local authorities are offering as support to micro, small and medium-sized businesses;
• promote entrepreneurship so that more people, and in particular younger ones, seriously consider becoming an entrepreneur as a career option;
• give recognition to entrepreneurs for their contribution to Europe’s welfare, jobs, innovation and competitiveness.

BizWorld is a non-profit that inspires children to be innovative leaders through the teaching of business, entrepreneurship and finance.

With the BizWorld Foundation’s programs, teachers help their students to develop the critical thinking, leadership and teamwork skills that allow them to become financially responsible and productive members of society.

In the U.S. and abroad, BizWorld programs show children in grades 3-8 how they will benefit from entrepreneurship, instilling confidence to reach their goals, and helping them become part of the next generation of innovators. The programs and curricula apply to kids from all socioeconomic and academic backgrounds, providing children with valuable real-world experiences. The curricula are easy to teach – programs can be completed in as little as 10 hours – and offer a refreshing complement to standardized learning.

BizWorld history
The BizWorld Foundation was founded in 1997 by venture capitalist Tim Draper, who saw a need for inspiring entrepreneurship in children. In 2003, the organization was re-launched with the addition of Catherine Hutton Markwell, CEO, with a focus on putting important curricula in the hands of educators around the world. In addition to the U.S, BizWorld programs are currently available in the Netherlands, Korea, India and Singapore.

I spent 5 years in London trying to raise funding for my online matchmaking business & in the end had to admit failure. My story is only one of many. Very early on in that journey I had committed to help women source venture, when I was successful. As it turned out I have been doing just that for the last year, not because I was successful but because I failed. Possibly if I had been successful I would never have had the time to accomplish a project like this. I have been video interviewing venture capitalists, angel investors & women founders on the shortfall in funding for women. My goal has been to listen to as many people as I could from both sides of the table, so I could hopefully determine where all these conversations intersected.

Whilst I have been doing these interviews, many people have said to me that no problem exists & that women can be as easily funded as men if they have a great idea, team, plan & advisors. However the statistics, some of which have been mentioned at the beginning of this book, show another story. The percentages of women in technology, female entrepreneurs & female venture capitalists are extremely low compared to men. The reasons are multifold & complex and cannot be answered or resolved quickly or easily.
Many wonderful people & organizations are working to change the ratio & I am sure that this situation will slowly shift due to their efforts. When I started this project a year ago, the conversation & debate was hot & heavy & continues to carry a lot of emotional response from both genders. So I surmise that it is timely to showcase these conversations about the lack of women being funded compared to men, to shed further light & awareness on the subject.

Some of the questions that were addressed Is there a Problem? Is there Overt Discrimination? Does Bias Keep Women Disadvantaged for Investment? Are there Advantages of Diversity? Should we Generalize about Gender? Are there differences between Men & Women? How does the Female Market Impact Investment? What do Female Entrepreneurs have Going for Them? Other issues: Risk & Failure, Thinking Big, Children, Sex & Power & Helping Other Women.

Just when you thought you couldn’t go back in the water or get funded, “Why are Women Funded Less than Men” the ebook is available. With a cast of thousands, well a lot anyway, 120 embedded video conversations with 26 venture capitalists, 19 female founders & 7 others – a truly crowd sourced conversation. Buy it $2.99& download now http://www.ezebis.com/ebook/

About the author: Pemo Theodore is an online entrepreneur & startup coach. Originally from Australia she has been in online business for over 6 years.  She has been involved in small business for 33 years in Australia, Canada, Ireland & London. She video interviews venture capitalists, angel investors & women founders in the US & Europe on the shortfall in funding for women.

frogThinks are geared toward getting people inspired to think more creatively, innovatively, and take more risks. They generate large quantities of ideas that are iteratively honed to become concrete concepts to move forward with. frogThinks provide a means to align stakeholders from different disciplines or groups around a common challenge and set of perspectives.

Most brainstorming is about becoming uninhibited, having fun, and firing out a stream of novel ideas, no matter how relevant, beneficial or practical they are. By contrast, frogThinks are highly structured and rigorous, with step-by-step tools that get people to be innovative and creative, without them even realizing it. The intimidation and pressure that some people feel about having to suddenly become creative is therefore removed, and more ideas are the result.

Using a custom-selected set of tools and workflows, people work in small groups on well-defined focus topics, but collaborate with the entire group toward a common goal. They come away energized, with a lot of new ideas, and new perspectives on how to solve tricky challenges.