TBIXI3

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) is the
world’s leading organization advancing business incubation
and entrepreneurship. Each year, it provides thousands of
professionals with information, education, advocacy and
networking resources to bring excellence to the process of
assisting early-stage companies. www.nbia.org
Incubation industry
growing, creating jobs
and diversifying
economies: As communities
around the world look for new
ways to promote economic
growth, business incubation
programs continue to play a
vital role, according to NBIA's
2012 State of the Business
Incubation Industry. The report
presents a snapshot of the
industry using survey data
collected from business
incubation programmes throughout North America. NBIA
has conducted the industry assessment periodically since
1989 and last published the SOI report in 2006.
The 2012 SOI confirms that the industry continues to
expand and that programmes are evolving to meet the needs
of today's entrepreneurs. Even in the face of the greatest
economic downturn since the Great Depression, which
resulted in some programme closures, the overall number of
incubation programmes in North America has increased by
over 300 since 2006. We estimate that more than 1,400
programmes currently serve approximately 49,000 new
ventures that provide employment to more than 200,000
workers.
The scope and breadth of services offered by these
programmes are expanding as well. NBIA often cites
examples of well-run incubation programmes that form the
hub of entrepreneurial activity in their communities, and it
seems more programmes are doing just that. Nearly threequarters
of SOI respondents reported offering preincubation
services, post-incubation services or both.
Anecdotally, we know these services include youth
entrepreneur education, business plan competitions, seed
acceleration, coworking services and a host of other
innovative solutions to problems faced by entrepreneurs and
growing companies. If you're interested in learning more,
the 2012 State of the Business Incubation Industry is
theNetwork
available through the NBIA Bookstore at
www.nbia.org/store.
NBIA has moved: After months of planning and long
hours of packing (that often included interesting trips into
almost-forgotten organizational history), NBIA has moved
from The Ridges, the site of a former psychiatric hospital, to
the building nearby that houses the Ohio University
Innovation Center in Athens, Ohio.
Our telephone numbers remain the same, but the
association has a new address:
340 West State Street, Unit 25
Athens, OH 45701-1565
“Everyone on the staff is excited about the move,” says
Tracy Kitts, NBIA's acting CEO. “Ohio University has a
vibrant community that supports entrepreneurship, and our
new office location puts us right in the middle of that
community.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to
space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space
capability and ensure that investment in space continues to
deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. ESA is
an international organisation with 19 member states. Each
year it produces an impressive number of incubatees through
competitions that promote innovation and entrepreneurship
creating high-knowledge jobs and transfer of technologies.
www.esa.int
Last year ended with launches of two new ESA Business
Incubation Centres (BICs) in Belgium, continuing the
country's strong support for the use of space.
ESA BIC Redu, located at the futuristic Galaxia business
park in Transinne (Libin), is to support projects involving
telecommunications, satellite navigation, earth observation
and also integrated applications for use on the ground, in
the air and on the sea. Regarding applications dedicated to
aeronautics, the ESA BIC Redu is conveniently located near
the St Hubert Airport (EBSH), which is an ideal test
platform. Furthermore, the optical fiber installed between
ESA Redu Centre and ESA BIC Redu is a unique tool to help
companies needing to send commands towards the Redu
antennas or to collect and treat fresh data coming from
Earth observation satellites.
ESA BIC Flanders, located in Geel, Belgium, in
cooperation with the renowned Flemish research
institutions VITO, SCK•CEN and IMEC, is to act as technical
51