Kroes : “There is a lot of money at the European investment banks. Because of their high AAA ranking, these banks are very cautious, but the funds that are available at those banks could be connected to startups.” In the video interview, the European Commissioner speaks passionately about a new wave of startups and how she will work towards this.
“We won’t be able to copy Silicon Valley ,” says Kroes . “We will have to find our own place in the chain. There are already very good clusters and initiatives going on in Europe. That’s also what the Startups growth accelerator was set up for. We have to get rid of the situation where we buy the hardware in the Far East, we buy the software in the Far West and we Europeans only consume.”
Net neutrality: “I'm crossing my fingers”
We also talk for a while about net neutrality, a topic that has been the subject of discussion for months. In the bill that is on the table, Kroes argues against blocking by operators. She also wants everyone to be able to use the internet and brazil mobile phone number list believes that there should be transparency around operator costs. "I'm crossing my fingers that this will be accepted," she says .
Neelie Kroes Bill
Online Privacy: Personal Responsibility vs. Legal Agreements
The online privacy issue is a constant tug of war between companies that want to make money and consumers that don’t want to put their private data on the internet. How can you solve this? “By finding a balance,” Kroes believes . “I am also sometimes surprised that people put everything on their Facebook and then come to me and say: ‘you have to guarantee online privacy ’. But that’s not how it works!”
Young children should learn programming at school
Towards the end of the talk, Kroes gives two nice examples of successful European crowdfunding startups, both based on coding. She says that crowdfunding is a new and necessary way to help startups.
The European Commissioner also advocates that children learn to program at school from an early age. “It’s fun, it’s the new way to write and it’s the new way to bring words to others and vice versa,” she believes . And with the right education, funding, and space to create startups – who knows, we might soon have our ‘own’ Steve Jobs or Bill Gates!