GE Reports CEE

In detail: GE Healthcare will install 200+ new equipment in Affidea’s network of centers. The deal includes the provision of 60 new MRIs, 50 ultrasound devices, 40 CT scanners and 30 X-rays machines in the next 3 years. It also includes a six-year service contract.

In addition, Affidea expands its collaboration with GE Healthcare in pharmaceutical diagnostics in all its geographies, to include Clariscan, GE Healthcare's new contrast media product, used in MRI exams.

With this partnership agreement, Affidea and GE Healthcare aim to complete the activation of Affidea's fleet of imaging equipment as a data-driven, connected and networked functionality, to enable clinicians’ collaboration, enhance sub-specialization and support business leaders to measurably improve operations near real time.

Affidea will deploy PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) driven post-processing hubs with the latest technologies and performance analytics capabilities with imaging insights, using GE Healthcare’s Edison intelligence platform at scale.  

GE Healthcare and Affidea will also combine their respective clinical education, lean and leadership development expertise using digital technologies to accelerate best practice adoption.

As leading diagnostic and digital technologies innovators, both GE Healthcare and Affidea are committed to continue co-developing diagnostic workflow solutions aimed at fostering value-based healthcare and promoting precision medicine along the care pathway.

“In the era of data-driven healthcare, the potential to make a positive impact on patients and doctors’ experience is impressive. Our goal is to support doctors and our operational teams for the benefit of our patients by using data analytics as a new way of orchestrating patient care and improving their experience. We are very happy that we could collaborate with GE Healthcare on this important project, which will accelerate the delivery of data-driven precision health.” - said Giuseppe Recchi, CEO of Affidea Group.

Professor Crescenzi is an expert on issues related to the link between innovation and regional economic performance, the formation, structure and impact of local and regional development policies and the analysis of both the location decisions and the local impacts of multinational firms at the regional and urban level. He is also an Associate at the Centre for International Development (CID) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and is affiliated with the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) and the Spatial Economics Research Center (SERC) at the LSE.

GE: Professor Crescenzi, at the recent round-table in Brussels you and your expert colleagues exchanged views and discussed the measures that should be undertaken do design an effective and “fair” EU regional policy for the next seven years. What exactly is understood by “fair”? Does this only refer to the allocation of funds or is there also a qualitative aspect to it?

Professor Riccardo Crescenzi (RC):

The design and implementation of a ‘fair ’EU regional policy goes well beyond the allocation of funds. A growing body of research has shown that what really matters to citizens on the ground are not fund allocations but real visible impacts in their local economies and communities. A ‘fair’ EU regional policy should ensure visible and measurable impacts in all regions and countries of Europe.

GE:

During the meeting it was ascertained that growth in the EU is diminishing. Globalization was mentioned as one reason for this negative development.  Wasn’t globalization once meant to boost international business … and now the opposite is the case?

RC:

Economists have studied the impacts of globalization either from a macro-economic national standpoint or from a purely firm-level perspective. For a long time they have overlooked impacts on inter-regional and inter-personal inequalities, leaving policy makers ill-equipped to deal with both. Cohesion Policy should embrace the most recent research on the topic and make evidence-based decision in order to develop new tool to deal head-on with the uneven impacts of globalization and fully embrace its benefits.  

 GE:

Growth is definitely still an important – and measurable - indicator for a country’s economic situation. But should growth still be the paramount objective for the well-being of a country or society? How important are nowadays goals like protection of the environment and/or social justice?

RC:

Economic growth and job creation are of paramount importance of the well-being of countries and regions. The recent Economic Crisis has shown very clearly that stagnation does improve well-being. We should work harder in both the public and the private sector in order to generate new economic opportunities within planetary boundaries.

 GE:

At the expert round-table it was stated that public policies should move away from the top-down approach consisting in the redistribution of wealth from leading to lagging regions in the form of subsidies and embrace a more cooperative approach focusing on each region’s competitive advantages. Who are the players in this cooperative approach and what is their specific role?

RC:

Cooperation, coordination and synergies between the top-down and the bottom-up are key. Development policies should not impose targets and tools from the top-down but a purely bottom-up approach has been shown to foster rent-seeking and lock-in by ‘powerful’ local actors. Balancing the two approaches is the solution.

GE:

One trigger for economic growth is definitely the level of a country’s innovation potential. Looking at who registers patents, it is clear that innovation is mostly developed by companies rather than individuals and therefore companies hold a significant wealth of knowledge and have an important role to play. Which role?

RC:

The role of firms has been significantly underestimated in the analysis of regional innovation and innovation clusters. Firms play a key role as orchestrators and generators of knowledge. Through their global network, internationalized firms channel new knowledge and ideas into local economies, fostering local dynamism and upgrading. Firms – international ones in particular – are very relevant nodes to link cities and regions to Global Value Chains (GVCs)

GE:

Figures show that CEE, for example, has a weak Intellectual Property (IP) culture. Only to mention some figures: In 2016 GE squeezed into the top 10 companies with the most European applications, i.e. 1,628 applications, which means that GE submitted more patent applications than the entire V4 (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) combined. In your opinion, what are the reasons for this innovation deficit? And what must be done to change this attitude?

RC:

The 50 most innovative companies in the world account for more than 30% of all patents granted by the US Patent Office. This confirms the fundamental role of corporate R&D in pushing technological boundaries. Corporate R&D activities are also hugely concentrated in space and many countries and regions play more marginal roles in the global technological contest. However, patents are only one possible measure for the technological output of a national innovation system. Relevant process or managerial innovation is not patented or patentable for example.

GE:

Let us have a closer look at the cooperation between large enterprises and the regional network of SMEs. Together they can create dynamic regional ecosystems, and benefits are available for all players involved. Can you describe what the benefits are for them? What are the benefits for the country itself?

RC:

The linkages between large enterprises and their surrounding SME environment are very important to avoid ‘cathedrals in the desert’, where large (domestic or foreign) firms remain disconnected from their host eco-systems. However, the establishment of such linkages is not always spontaneous. Public policies to facilitate the development of dynamic regional eco-systems have often failed, in particular in less developed regions. In this area it is key to focus efforts (and resources) on well-tested tools based on hard evidence on what works in practice.

GE:

Why, in your opinion, do SMEs play such a special role in a country’s economic development? And, on the other hand, where do you see their limitations?

RC:

SMEs are key components of a dynamic national or regional economic environment. Some SMEs need to be able to develop and grow into larger internationalized companies with a healthy firm demography. Where countries or regions are unable to develop a healthy balance in terms of small and large firms this might become a constraint to their economic development

GE: Let us end with a kind of provocative question: Not so long ago, Europe could, in simple words, be described as “poor East, rich West”. Nowadays you find in CEE bright cities driven by growth, whereas in some parts of Western Europe you feel the decline. What has happened that the “old picture” of rich and poor regions has apparently reversed?

RC:

A growing body of evidence is showing that simple East-West (North-South) dichotomies are not effective in describing the complexity of spatial economic imbalances in Europe. We need to look more carefully at the historical and contemporary features of regions and cities in order to develop more accurate diagnoses of their economic potential and future trajectories.

We are proud that today the largest GE Power site outside the US is based in Hungary, assembling power plants suitable to provide electricity for 30.000 homes within 48 hours. The largest GE Healthcare data science team in Europe is also here, driving innovation out of Hungary. The rapidly growing Aviation business brings life to aircraft engines in Veresegyház. That means every 6 seconds a commercial plane takes off somewhere in the world with parts repaired in Hungary. Renewable Energy is expected to be GE’s highest-growth business and the teams in Budapest provide end-to-end solutions to our customers across Europe. All these activities are completed with integrated services and digital solutions out of Hungary.

Watch the “We are GE in Hungary” video                            source:GE

GE believes in partnerships and in common growth and AmCham is one of our best partners in regulatory affairs, policy shaping. We are proud to be long-term partners of AmCham working jointly on driving Hungary’s competitiveness to be successful on the global market. As one of the founding members of AmCham in Hungary, GE and Tungsram have joined the AmCham 30th Anniversary Gala event as diamond partners.

“The AmCham in Hungary has played an important role in enabling positive exchange of goods and ideas by facilitating strong domestic EU business communities and ensuring they are connected and raising their most important issues to governments. AmCham’s role in providing a forum for businesses to contribute to transatlantic trade is paramount to maintaining this strong relationship.” – pointed out Mo Cowan, President, GE Global Government Affairs & Policy, in his key-note speech at the Gala event in the Hungarian Parliament.

Mo Cowan, President, GE Global Government Affairs & Policy, speaking at the Hungarian Parliament                                   source: GE

To convey the company's congratulations to its 30 years presence in Hungary Mo Cowan has also joined the celebration at GE sites and shared his thoughts about GE’s past and future in Hungary, about our role in GE’s global setting and on the current status of our company’s transformation.

“Fire-side chat” with Mo Cowan, moderated by Gergő Lencsés, GE Power, Global Value Chain Leader at GE Power Veresegyház.    source: GE

“GE has grown its presence from its acquisition of Tungsram in 1989 to include all of our “core” businesses: Power, Renewable Energy, Aviation, Digital, and Healthcare, making Hungary one of GE’s most important hubs in Europe. During this 30 years period, GE has undergone a significant transformation but one thing hasn’t changed: its unique global outlook. A famous Hungarian inventor, physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Dennis Gabor once said: “Futures cannot be predicted but futures can be invented.” I look forward to the next 30 years of GE in Hungary and am eager to see the new ways in which our joint future is invented. Judging from history, it is sure to be nothing short of extraordinary.” – said Mo Cowan at the 30th Anniversary employee event.

Celebrating GE in Hungary for 30 years at GE Váci Greens Campus  source: GE

On the artificial turf flooring, there stands a professional table-tennis table – it’s not every day that you get to see a large Hungarian corporation having such fancy stuff on the second floor of its office building. Here, at the Váci Street headquarters of GE healthcare, this is just another of the many atmospheric elements. No wonder that the place was named ‘Office of the Year’ three years ago – as a matter of fact, the US-based multinational company, which has undergone extensive streamlining for some years now, doesn’t even call it ‘office building’ but ‘campus’.

The cool factor has been added knowingly and intentionally to the work environment as some 700 people come to work here every day. The place hosts a regional service center, along with sales, financial, legal and marketing hubs, and also a think tank comprising more than 400 software development engineers. As we speak, they are the largest development team in GE Healthcare all over Europe.

“This is a hub in Europe,” GE Hungary Vice President Endre Ascsillán says. “Our developers are assigned with global tasks. They keep getting assignments from other European countries and the USA, and we do our best to retain these customers and attract even more from abroad. We’re growing continuously and a year from now, we’ll employ as many as 600 developers.”

In the past few years, the environment has become more and more attractive for European startups geared for healthcare innovation. This trend has intensified since the company’s business accelerator program, the Health Venture Lab (HVL), sponsored by GE and EIT Health, was launched. Today, Health Venture Lab is considered as one of the top 10 healthcare startup schemes on the continent (at least it was ranked as such by the Financial Times, with HVL being the only one among Easter European accelerators to receive such a distinction). In the context of consecutive semi-annual programs, the business incubator sponsors dozens of fresh ideas each year and helps startups develop these ideas into marketable products.

“When startuppers hit us up to join the program with their prototypes under their arm, they also bring their ideas with them and what they get is business training and mentoring” says Endre Ascsillán, adding that this is a decidedly narrow-gauged ‘medtech accelerator’, supporting healthcare related software and hardware solutions for applicants that already have a well-developed prototype.”

Ascsillán emphasizes that what his company offers is professional assistance: admitted applicants enter a world that comprises both the Budapest hub and the environment that the hub has consciously built around itself over the years. This environment includes GE’s global professional infrastructure and a host of clinical and academic partnerships (from the University of Debrecen through Sorbonne to Boston MIT). For a period of six months, each participant receives customized coaching on marketing and pricing, or software development issues, depending on the individual needs of the startup concerned.

Within the framework of this program and during the above stage, startups do not receive any funding from GE because, as Endre Ascsillán puts it, that is not what the Lab is all about. “There’s plenty of cash lying around in the market. So much, in fact, that it’s made the operation of the system somewhat counterproductive.” What the market really needs is ‘smart money’, that is, investment combined with expertise – this is something that the startups participating in the recently closed program have also confirmed. Each of them says that even though they are constantly looking for investors that would help them proceed with the development of their ideas, coaching and mentoring is just as important for them. They crave smart money.

As a next step following Health Venture Lab, GE is developing a financial platform that would bring together high-quality and reliable venture capital investors with investment-worthy startups. “We represent the ’smart’ part of the platform, while venture capital investors will add the ‘money’ Ascsillán describes the direction that GE is headed, as the long-term goal is to make sure that great ideas no longer have to travel to the USA to become world-famous – as ten original ideas out of ten do nowadays – but that they can take off from Europe, too. Global success stories of the future may even get a head start in Budapest, Hungary.

The second accelerator program was completed on October 18. 23 start-ups joined the program, including 17 international and 6 Hungarian teams . We will introduce four of them.  

HOW TO GET PREGNANT USING SALIVA AND SMART PHONE

A tiny microscope, a drop of saliva, a smartphone and an application with imaging analytical algorithm - Babyndex's saliva test shows you fertile days in minutes.

On that Sunday morning on the porch of the Bodós’ family home, it was not only a father and son sitting down to talk – it was fifty years of gynecological experience and a keen interest in IT innovation meeting with fresh expertise in digitization. The experience and interest was brought to the table by Ákos Bodó, obstetrician-gynecologist at Hatvan Hospital, while digitization was his son Zajzon Bodó’s thing who had worked for the European Commission as an economist for many years, analyzing electronic infrastructures and market competition. This combination in itself would not automatically have resulted in the establishment of a healthcare startup aimed at helping people get pregnant, but Zajzon Bodó had always been interested in process automation and when he noticed that healthcare was one of the least digitized industries, the idea of Babyndex came to the fore in family conversations on Sundays.

After having discussed the central issue, namely, things that were still done ‘analog’ in gynecology, it did not take long for father and son to arrive at the topic of the saliva test that, in theory, would reliably indicate a rise in estrogen level, that is, the fertile window, a few days prior to ovulation. However, since the analog method for analyzing a saliva sample is difficult for the uninitiated, this method – even though more reliable than urine pregnancy tests, not to mention the calendar method – has not become widespread. Anyone can get a microscope, and there are special applications for the results of the microscopic examination, read with the naked eye, to be entered into, but a solution for the necessary image analysis – in other words, a precise identification of the crystal structure of saliva – is yet to be found.

But that is the very essence of the entire process: the Babyndex application uses an image processing algorithm to analyze saliva samples, and applies artificial intelligence to extract information from the image and arrive at a conclusion whether the crystal structure signaling a rise in estrogen level is present or not. This part of the application is being developed by a friend of Zajzon Bodó’s, Slovenian bioinformatician Tilen Kranjc (who has a PhD in image analysis), who met Zajzon at a professional conference and joined the team as a co-owner earlier in the year.

Here is how it will work in practice. Firstly, you buy a microscope about the size of a lipstick (an analog device you can find in stores), unscrew the cap and place a drop of saliva (possibly in the morning, before eating or drinking) on the integrated microscope stage. Wait 10 minutes for the saliva to dry, and then place the camera of your smartphone on the microscope and take a photo of the sample, lit by a built-in LED lamp. You can now have the application to immediately analyze the sample by using the image processing algorithm and come to a conclusion on whether the crystal signaling a fertility window is present.

Zajzon Bodó has filed for an international patent, and he is very confident about the marketability and future prospects of the idea. He has been even more confident since Harvard University conducted a research study on the subject last year and predicted ovulation with an accuracy of 99%. International market interest in the prototype of Babyndex is high: the company is in negotiations with an Austrian clinic and, among others, the German pharmaceutical manufacturing company Bayer. They are not only interested in Babyndex because it is expected to be a hit among women trying to conceive (there is a market for that that is worth about half a billion euros at the moment) but also because the application will theoretically be usable as a contraceptive method. The latter market comprises an even bigger customer base, worth about twenty billion euros.

COMPUTER GAME TO IMPROVE EYESIGHT

A Slovenian team is working on an exciting way for kids to cure lazy eye.

Even Žan Menart himself was skeptical at first when eye specialists advised him to focus on finding solutions for amblyopia. By then he and his team had already developed a free application that offered 15 different additional tests for optometrists, supplementing the range of basic vision tests. In the span of a few years, a hundred thousand eye doctors registered as users for the application but Žan still regarded optometry as a niche market. When experts from the Slovenian medical school approached him to develop a computer game that would help with the treatment of a certain vision development disorder called amblyopia, commonly known as ‘lazy eye’, he failed to see the business potential at first.

Five percent of children around the world have amblyopia, but only half of them experience actual vision problems in their everyday lives. The dominant opinion is that this condition can be effectively corrected and cured before the age of 7 or 8 by doing eye muscle exercises daily. The traditional method is to cover the eyeglass lense in front of the person’s good eye so that the muscles that control the movement of the lazy eye are forced to get to work. Also, children who have this condition are asked to do stimulating eye exercises by drawing on a piece of paper and making various hand gestures. Such exercises will only be effective if they are done with discipline and on a daily basis, but, as the doctors will warn their patients, they are very time-consuming and require active involvement on the part of parents, and, most of all, kids tend to find them really boring.

Žan and his team – including two doctors and two developers – decided to use their efforts toward finding a solution, and by today they work on the development of Amblyoplay full time. So far, they have developed ten computer games, with another two coming up this year, and they are planning to add to the software a new feature/new functions each month. Their products are not meant to substitute or replace doctors – they will just make eye exercising at home easier and more exciting as part of the overall therapy.

Based on the experiences gained by a testing team of 40 or 50 people, feedback from partner clinics and initial market response, Žan and his team have created something exciting both from a medical and business point of view, and the highest initial demand seems to come from the world’s biggest market, the USA and Canada. “There are lots of eye clinics in the US and Americans are very open to healthcare equipment, gadgets and therapies,”  Žan says. He has just returned from a trade fair in Las Vegas where he saw that his product was in high demand.

Also, their business model has been clearly defined by now and looks sustainable. They are offering three-month, six-month and twelve-month subscriptions at a price of €100, €170 and €300, respectively (or the equivalent USD amounts). Of course, subscriptions can be renewed – currently, the average term is seven months. New subscribers are given a box with special eyeglasses in it (one of the lenses is red and the other one is blue – they are required for playing the games) and an access code to the application. Experience has taught Žan that he had to “give people something tangible, some kind of physical item, because they weren’t willing to pay that much for the application in itself.” Bundled with the glasses, however, the application sells well and the profit margin (35 percent on three-month subscriptions) is high enough for the startup to break even in no time.

This means that even though at this moment they do not need additional capital, they are planning to enter the US market to sell high volumes next year, so preparations are being made for raising funds of 1 million euros from investors. Žan believes that making it into the top 3 service providers in the US market for at-home vision therapy within 5 years is a reasonable goal for the startup. Then they will enter the somewhat more conservative European market, but even before that, the application will already be available at the company’s webshop to all kids who are comfortable with doing exercises in the English language.

FIGHTING CANCER WITH DATABASE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

More data, more life, says a Romanian gynecologic oncologist who builds a platform with his colleagues where all necessary information is available at one place to cure cancer patients.

No one should be doomed to die just because a medical report is lost or takes too long to reach the right specialist, so says gynecologist-oncologist Madalin Margan of Temesvár, Romania. The young doctor knows well how health facilities in Romania – and, to some extent, in Easter Europe – work. The way he sees it, one of the biggest problems is that a huge amount of patient data, files and reports are floating around but these institutions are unable to analyze and process such information quickly and efficiently enough to help patients the way they should.

To that end, Oncochain is building a web-based platform available to all stakeholders that may be involved in any way in the treatment of patients. Such stakeholders include doctors at clinics, medical schools, pharmaceutical companies, researchers at cancer centers, and, of course, the cancer patients themselves for whom each and every day matters and speed is of the essence.

A huge amount of patient data, files and reports are floating around but these institutions are unable to analyze and process information quickly and efficiently enough to help patents. 

Patients are asked to authorize stakeholders to access the platform by signing the necessary consent form, and once they have, all of their existing medical examinations and the results of such tests will be uploaded into the system. “We are fully GDPR compliant,” emphasizes Madalin, referring to the fact that they are dealing with truly sensitive data – it is no wonder that from the very beginning the startup has been working with a major law firm with regard to the furnishing of guarantees and securities.

But the most important thing is to ensure that healing gets done, meaning that the patient and their doctors are always up-to-date and have access to the entire corpus of examination results – and the dots that need to be connected will be connected. Madalin has found that due to the inadequate flow of information, many patients are left out of clinical research programs, the latest therapies, or research studies run by pharmaceutical companies, and even the so-called second medical opinion is slow to arrive as the diagnoses and medical reports relating to a patient can only be collected from multiple sources through a multistage process.

Even the patients themselves are not entirely certain about what is being done to them and how their treatment is progressing. Patients would be able to access their own Oncochain data via a smartphone application free of charge (the application for Android and iOS will be launched at year-end). Also, they will be notified by the system every time someone accesses their data. Healthcare providers, research institutes and pharmacies, however, will have to pay for using the platform.

Budapest-based Health Venture Lab (HVL) is an accelerator program dedicated to the professional growth of healthcare-based businesses. HVL helps European startups with a working prototype gain business development knowledge and broaden their global network.

Szemerey Daniel, Director of Health Venture Lab at Demo Day  source:GE

“What is unique for Health Venture Lab is the combination of deep industry knowledge and the community. A lot of startups come in here without understanding how they can commercialize their product that they have developed. HVL can help them understand the path of a customer, how to profile them and how to make them a recurring customer” – says Dániel Szemerey, director of Health Venture Lab.

But in many cases, a lack of adequate funding is an insurmountable barrier for a startup’s success. To help overcome this challenge, HVL is creating the Capital Community, a smart money platform which enables businesses who successfully participate in the program to connect with serious professionals and trusted, quality investors.

dr. Endre Ascsillán, Vice President of GE in Hungary        source: GE

“Budapest-based Health Venture Lab is dedicated to the professional growth of healthcare focused businesses. Based on HVL’s success and its professional expertise, the accelerator program will now be complemented by the Capital Community. The smart money platform enables investments combined with professional and business expertise to provide a solid financial background for long-term business development. We are extremely proud of the success of participating startups and want to support our alumni in the long run” – said Endre Ascsillán, Vice President of GE at the HVL Demo Day pitch competition, when the Capital Community was announced.

The goal of the program is to create a comprehensive and competitive ecosystem built around GE Healthcare that enhances and accelerates European need-based innovation, involving government, industry, academia and potential investors.

 “As an investor I could say that this year's startup community is very strong. I have seen over the past few months how they have matured and how they managed to shift their focus from the innovation to the financing platform of their companies. I have met exciting teams working on high intellectual value and innovation with great potential for growth. It is great to work with these startups because they listen to those that represent investors and those who represent investors’ opinions - says Ilona Kecskés, investment banker and leader of the Smart Money Platform project.

The 23 participating teams came from 16 different countries, including Norway, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia to Bulgaria, to name a few. Startups worked on IoT, hardware/software platforms and medical imaging/AI topics alongside professional executives. After the 6 months intensive training and preparation, they pitched their products and services to a professional jury and to a wider audience, venture capital investors and participants of the innovation ecosystem.

Pitching in front of the expert jury.                        source: GE

From left: Attila Ferik (GE Healthcare), János Gyarmati (GE Healthcare), Enrique Shadah (MIT), Ernest Lara (MIT), Ilona Kecskés (HVL Capital Community), Tamás Békási – EIT Health

“As a jury member at the Demo Day startup competition, I was impressed by the level of companies that HVL attracts from all over Europe. I believe HVL’s contribution towards building a strong innovation community is valuable because of its focus on providing strategic guidance to venture teams tackling hard problems in healthcare. Strong teams attract investors who seek to support innovation in healthcare. Thus, the role of HVL as a community builder in the ecosystem is vital” – said Enrique Shadah, MIT, Venture Relations expert at MIT IMES LinQ Program for Biomedical Innovation and member of the HVL jury.

The participants agree as well.

“During the program we doubled our revenues but also met a lot of valuable people. It’s a perfect mix of industry insiders, people who are enthusiastic about innovations and people who really know how to train other people.” – says Lech Ignatowicz from Biopromic.  

In partnership with EIT Health, the program helps to deliver ambitious health ideas that can revolutionize the future of healthcare through intensive workshops, professional presentations and personalized consultations and networking opportunities.

“EIT Health, as the largest healthcare innovation network in Europe, provides support for Health Venture Lab participants in 3 main areas: personal -, network- and financial growth at international level. The “quality stamp” of EIT Health and Health Venture Lab provides a fast track to get the attention of the investors, making funds available easier and faster for the young talents. We are proud to see how much the participating teams have developed their business performance during the program and are now ready to enter the healthcare market.” - added Balázs Fürjes, Managing Director, EIT Health InnoStars.

Congratulations to all participants who graduated from the HVL program. It was a tough competition!

Awards for this year’s pitch competition went to:

Most Disruptive Product Award

Medicsen – from Madrid provides a closed-circuit system for the intelligent management of diabetes, the first non-invasive artificial combining non-invasive drug-delivery with mobile-AI tech.

Most Promising Product Award

Biopromic – from Stockholm enables simple and rapid point of care test for infectious diseases by increasing sensitivity over 25 times, similar to a “pregnancy test" like device.

Audience Award

Amblyo Play – from Slovenia provides a vision therapy solution for children with visual problems such as lazy eye or strabismus, that is conducted daily at home through playing interactive engaging games.

HVL participating teams:

IOT

Dignisens    http://www.dignisens.com/

Studio Rebus     https://www.silvermonitor.care

Vimely AI Lab      http://www.wedonthave.hu

Stressless SRL      http://mytully.com/

Industrial Analytics doo      http://ianalytics.eu

Heuristik    http://www.heuristik.tech

Hardver

Slimmingphone SL       https://www.nutrexact.com

Lion Healthcare AS     http://www.lionhealthcare.no

Ferterex     https://www.ferterex.lv

Medicsen     https://www.medicsen.com/en

Pharsol      https://pharsol.com/

Biopromic AB     http://www.biopromic.com/

Software/Platform

CUREStoken     https://www.curestoken.com/

OncoChain    https://oncochain.com/

Ascendio Techvision SRL    https://imfine.ascendio.tech/

DrPort Europe      http://drport.hu/

Smart Optometry     https://www.amblyoplay.com

DokiApp     https://www.dokiapp.hu/

BabyIndex      https://babyndex.eu

Epidy Health Research   https://epidy.com

Medical Imaing/AI

S-Case      http://www.scase.io

Vitrolink      https://vitrolink.com

Main characters of the Bra Day - female patients - have proved that the painful experience of breast cancer does not necessarily mean a loss of femininity. For one day they slipped into the role of models and presented the creations of young designers on the catwalk. These wonderful women with their courageous attitude want to inspire others to undergo regular preventive examinations.

GE Healthcare BRA DAY 2019                                                  source:GE

The media patronage over this event was taken by the famous ELLE magazine which on this occasion prepared a photo session with the ladies from the catwalk. The backstage of the photo session of the main BRA Day heroines was used to organize a photo exhibition at the GE Healthcare office in Warsaw.

Breast cancer patients on the catwalk                            source:GE

Other actions organized by GE within this breast cancer initiative were free prophylactic examinations at the M. Kopernik Hospital in Lodz as well as mammography workshops for radiologists and technicians also in Lodz.

This was the 5th edition of the Bra Day – and hopefully there will be more initiatives like this … which openly address the disease and its consequences but also methods of detecting cancer earlier, ensuring better treatment and longer lives. 

One proof for this statement is the order for GE’s 100th HA unit, a 9HA.02 gas turbine placed by MYTILINEOS S.A. for its Agios Nikolaos Power Plant in the Voiotia region in Greece. The order also includes a GE steam turbine and generator, as well as a multi-year service agreement. When operational, the plant is estimated to produce a thermal efficiency in excess of 63 %, making it one of the most efficient power plants in Europe and in the world.

The HA is the world’s fastest growing gas turbine fleet with 100 units ordered by more than 40 customers in 18 countries. The fleet has accumulated more than 415,000 operating hours of commercial experience.

Read the article in Hungarian here:

A while ago, a highly respected colleague of mine said “One for all, all for one” and perfectly described with this famous quote the relevance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging Europe for companies like ours.

Partnering with best in class suppliers is one of the major prerequisites for the success of GE. This major finding was again confirmed at our recent Renewable Energy Global Supplier Conferences, where 370 participants from 30 countries, among them 260 participants from the supplier side – both existing and potential partners – were present.

In 2021, renewable energy will account for 40-50 per cent of new installed generation capacities. Renewable Energy is GE’s highest-growth business in 2019 and the company is therefore looking for sustainable local partnerships. For suppliers, this business is an excellent opportunity to anticipate the future by supporting cutting-edge technologies, investing in capacity, leveraging synergies between supply chains of businesses and raising awareness.

With Cypress, a five MW onshore turbine platform and Haliade-X, the worldwide first 12 MW offshore turbine, the GE portfolio includes technology setting the pace in the global energy transition. With 1 GW of installations – existing and backlog – GE is also the only offshore wind turbine OEM with installations on three continents.

The renewable market offers a lot of positive and – unfortunately – also challenging certainties: the market is growing and continues to do so, GE is investing massively in new products: onshore, offshore, hydropower. But competition is fierce, pricing is under pressure as technology advances, prices for raw materials are volatile. We – the supplier network and GE – can, in the end, only win together. Having identified around 20 potential new suppliers out of emerging Europe with five having received a high probability classification, that’s what I call a real win.

Tony Long -  Global Sourcing Leader, GE Renewable Energy speaking at the conference - source:GE

Representing the stakes of emerging Europe in our company, it made me proud when I heard my colleague Anthony Long, global sourcing leader for GE Renewable Energy, saying: “We want to grow our supply base as Renewable Energy in Eastern Europe beyond the trusted partners we have worked with in the past. With the ever changing and fluid currency fluctuations, global raw material pricing; it is important to not become too reliant on any one area of the world. We trust in the demonstrated quality, on time delivery, attention to EHS and full compliance to our ethical code proven by all of the suppliers to GE located in Central and Eastern Europe.”

SMEs are an extremely important success factor for any country as they employ the most people and are often called the backbone of the economy. The intense cooperation between GE and its CEE supplier network has its official origin in 2017, when GE Hungary formulated a strategic partnership with the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA) and for National Economy (NGM) to support the development of its Hungarian supplier base.

Given the importance of emerging Europe for international business in general and GE in particular, the company decided not to limit this initiative to Hungary but to extend it to the CEE region. Based on the success of joint efforts and utilising the Hungarian Sourcing Support Ecosystem as a blueprint, an initiative was freshly launched to recreate its success in other CEE countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia). This supplier program enables high potential SMEs to improve their know-how on disruptive technologies, become more integrated into GE’s supply chain and create bigger value for the local economy through access to capital investment options, partnerships and global markets. Highly productive SMEs throughout the whole region will be essential to sustain the process of transitioning into an innovation-based society. That’s why GE Renewable Energy has decided to hold its Global Supplier Conference in Hungary, as we see the potential of the region and its SMEs. We want to feel the pulse of emerging Europe.

Why it is so essential to work with a sound local suppliers’ network? The key words are safety, quality, delivery, cost and last but not least: people. We want to work with committed, talented people, drive a safety-first culture, deliver – on time – excellent customer experience and focus on cost to finally increase our procurement volume by better integrating all of our SME partners and integrating new ones into our supply chain. In order to maintain our competitive edge, we need to move up the ecosystem around us to the next level, thus pull up our suppliers along with us.

Explore our next Corporate Social Responsibility Report around GE’s activities in Hungary focusing on sustainability and our contribution to our local communities to find answers to the below questions:

What is the company’s indirect economic impact in Hungary? 

How does technology change our lives? 

How can we use the power of education and equal opportunity to support future generation? 

How can volunteerism strengthen the community within and outside the company?

Learn more about our best practices how we transform, what we do for sustainability and how we promote corporate social responsibility by doing the right thing.

Download the GE Hungary CSR Report 2018 here: http://www.ge.com/hu/en

There is no doubt that one important pillar of Poland’s decarbonization is the increased use of renewable energies: The order for 81 onshore wind turbines placed with GE Renewable Energy to power the 220 MW Potegowo Wind Project in Slupsk County, Northern Poland, is an important step in the right direction. With a current installed base of 580 MW in Poland, GE Renewable Energy will increase its installed base to 800 MW in the country, once the project is commissioned. 

The 220 MW wind farm is expected to help save 480,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year. GE’s 2MW onshore wind turbines will power the wind farm, which is divided in four sub-projects: Biecino, with five units already in the process of being installed; Karzcino and Wrzescie, with 13 units; Gluszynko, with 20 unit; and Malechowo, with 43 units – in total 81 wind turbines.

 All turbines will be manufactured at GE Renewable Energy’s site in Salzbergen, Germany. GE will also provide a five-year Full Service Agreement offering data-driven insights, expert recommendations, and advanced field services.

GE wind onshore 2.75-120 wind turbines                         source:GE

Peter Wells, Onshore Wind CEO for Europe and SSA at GE Renewable Energy said, “we are proud to announce our first project with Potegowo Mashav Sp Z OO and reiterate our commitment to bring sustainable green electrons to the Polish grid. Poland’s wind industry is vibrant and will continue to thrive, as the upcoming auctions offer promising opportunities to continue supporting the country’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) on its path towards decarbonization.”

Tomer Eizenberg, CEO of Mashav Energia said, “we are thrilled to have the opportunity to build one of the largest wind farms in Poland, which would not have been possible without our partners at GE Renewable Energy. This is a significant milestone in our wind farm investment program, having won the Polish government tender in November 2018 for the supply of 220 MW of wind generated energy to the Polish electricity network”.

The project is backed by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and is the first renewables investment in Poland in the past three years.

“NUCLEARELECTRICA is committed to delivering power to the residents of Romania in ways that are clean, safe and reliable,” said Cosmin Ghita, CEO of SNN. “GE is a key partner for us because they share in this commitment through the work and support they provide our team each and every day.” 

The agreement will cover maintenance and services on the plant’s two steam turbines and generators to help ensure reliable operation of the facility through 2027. Work on the turbine islands begins later this year, when GE will perform a planned maintenance outage on Cernavoda’s unit 2 turbine generator after 12 years of service. GE is supporting SNN in reducing Romania’s greenhouse emissions by up to 80 million tons over the life of the agreement.

Cernavoda Romania                                      source:GE

“This agreement is an important milestone for our team as we continue collaborating with power producers like SNN to help deliver clean, reliable power to countries across Europe including Romania,” said Martin Boller, Europe Region General Manager for GE Steam Power. “We’ve enjoyed working closely with the Cernavoda team since 1986, as part of the more than 120 Multi-Year Agreements we have in place for nuclear facilities worldwide.” 

With 50% of the world’s nuclear fleet equipped with a GE steam turbine, Cernavoda will benefit from the OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturer’s) global expertise and regional presence to maintain high-performing and safe operation. In Europe, GE performs around 100 nuclear outages per year.

A highlight in terms of GE’s supplier network is the CEE (Central and Eastern European) region. GE has a steadily growing number of suppliers in this part of the world and its procurement value exceeds 1.7 billion USD, which it hopes to increase significantly through extending its SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) supplier base, fostering the development of regional suppliers and transferring its know-how on digital distributive technologies to its suppliers. Better connecting SMEs in CEE to the global economy via GE’s supply chain and developing innovative, future safe and digitally enabled SMEs means further increasing the competitiveness of the region.

Why is the CEE region such an interesting market? It has experienced unprecedented growth in the past 20 years. The source of that growth has been competitive labor costs, robust internal consumption and ambitious foreign direct investments. However, being efficient in pure technology absorption is not going to maintain economic growth in the long run, and the increase in productivity is getting closer to the boundaries of technology. Further growth needs different drivers and the real challenge will be how GE supports the transition of CEE into an innovation- based region. Increased and stronger cross-border collaboration will drive the growth of SME suppliers in CEE.

One example of such a successful cooperation between GE and a regional supplier is Tungsram, a European lighting company. Following a close coordination within the framework of GE’s Supplier Program over the last 12 months, Tungsram has won the opportunity to further extend its supply network with several GE Businesses. As a highlight, Tungsram has invested 1.5 million USD to create a new shop operation concerning inspection and maintenance of aircraft engine components in its plant in Kisvárda, Hungary for GE Aviation.

„GE Aviation Hungary works competitively to secure volume and build capabilities to better serve our customers. Our goal is to grow repair capability locally in Veresegyház and through partnerships in this region” – explained Casey Ott, Managing Director of GE Aviation Hungary Kft., located in Veresegyház.“

GE Aviation has a rapidly growing portfolio of commercial engine products, all of which have long life-cycles. Its need for global repair and maintenance capacity is always a priority.  

“We are proud to see how quickly and effectively Tungsram integrated into GE’s supply chain by transforming and upgrading its already existing processes and by also creating new capabilities in Kisvárda”, said Endre Ascsillán, Vice President of GE Hungary about the cooperation.

The center will strengthen the position of the Polish engineering team at the EDC in the global structures of the corporation.

“The two new labs that are just a beginning of the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center are an important step in EDC journey. Nowadays, design of the products must be much more connected with manufacturing technologies. It is especially important in case of turbine blades manufacturing and additive technologies where manufacturing capability defines design space. These two labs will enable much quicker iteration between design and manufacturing and - in this way - shorten development cycle. They also will lead the way to create new advanced manufacturing ecosystem strengthening GE Aviation presence in the region.” – said Marian Lubieniecki, Chairman of the Management Board, GE Company Polska Sp. z o.o.   

The local engineering team will now have broader opportunities for defining the future development of cooled parts of gas turbines. Additionally, as part of the local design and production ecosystem, Polish engineers will be better prepared to implement and monitor innovative technological solutions at the stage of their commercialization.

PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna) chose GE’s ultra-super critical (USC) coal technology for Opole 5 & 6 to use locally available hard coal and ensure best available technology in terms of plant efficiency. Opole Units 5 & 6 will have an efficiency rate significantly higher than the global average and provide stability to the Polish grid as the country seeks to introduce more renewables.

What does ultra-supercritical mean in concrete terms?  It means that coal is burnt producing very high steam parameters, namely 600°C steam temperature and 250 bar steam pressure thus increasing the plant efficiency up to 46 % and reducing therefore the amount of coal by 20 % compared to conventional coal-fired power plants.

Michael Keroulle, GE Steam Power’s Chief Commercial Officer said, “We are proud to be part of Opole project which will stabilize the Polish grid using best in class technology to support the sustainable energy transition and further development of the renewable energy sources. Each milestone that we reach is a credit to the full consortium. This has been a team effort.” With both units synchronized to the grid, the next milestone is the Provisional Acceptance of Unit 5 which is expected by the end of May.

Henryk Baranowski, PGE’s Chief Executive Officer said, “Opole Units 5 & 6 will play an important role in Poland’s energy infrastructure as it is the biggest project in the Polish energy sector since 1989. Today, the plant is successfully delivering reliable power to the Polish grid. PGE’s investments in modern coal-based energy are enhancing the country’s energy security and facilitating a gradual replacement of old capacities in the system with units that are nearly one-third more efficient. The two new units in Opole will bring the country’s CO2 emissions down by 2.5 million tonnes.”

There is a huge business potential in healthtech sector, predicted to be worth $280bn by 2021 and Health Venture Lab provides a unique opportunity for startups from Europe and beyond to enter an international ecosystem of innovation. GE’s extensive partnerships enhancing European innovation allow several ways of collaboration with startups. Knowledge sharing, tailored coaching is the best way to build a supportive environment around innovative healthcare solutions. That’s how Health Venture Lab become listed among the best #HealthTech accelerators in Europe by Sifted – a Financial Times backed publication recently.

Endre Ascsillan -  Vice President, GE Strategic and Government Relations for CEE speaking about European Innvovation                          soucre: HVL

”We are extremely proud of the 25 passionate startups, arriving from all over Europe, representing 16 different countries, from Madrid to Stockholm, down to Athen, just to mention a few. They joined the Budapest, Hungary based Health Venture Lab’s (HVL) next accelerator program in April to innovate and to widen their business competences in the upcoming 6 months”.– said Endre Ascsillan, Vice President, GE Strategic and Government Relations for CEE at his welcome note. “Innovation works best, when industry, academy and entrepreneurs can work together. Our goal is to bring these promising health-related business ideas to the next level by providing opportunities to learn from the best innovative researchers and from GE Healthcare professionals, who have the right experience, knowledge, access and tools to support young entrepreneurs. Teams arrive to HVL with a working prototype where we support their efforts to enter international markets successfully.”

Aging population, outdated healthcare system, shortage on clinicians and medical staff, lack of cost effective and mobile diagnostic devices or increasing volume of patient data are just one of the few challenges participating HVL teams are working on solutions for. They work together in teams organised around topics for IoT, Hardware, Software/Platforms and Medical imaging/AI. HVL created a thriving community of international innovators from the very first moment and provides a great opportunity to all participants and partners to network with like-minded professionals.  

Daniel Szemerey - Director of HVL.                  source HVL

Health Venture Lab program also helps in shifting local healthcare business creation efforts to an international level by linking them with the EIT Health Network.

„We help participants learn how to find Product – Market Fit by providing insight from leading business experts, deep domain knowledge from university, research and financing partners, who share their expertise in the healthcare field and through the international nature of the programme. The access to this network helps European startups reach the market faster and provide novel innovations to society.” – explained Daniel Szemerey, Director of HVL.

GE Healthcare, driver of the HVL initiative  is betting big on digital; its experts work not only on connecting hospital departments and physicians more effectively but utilize the masses of data received from its equipment and the collaboration between hardware and software to help clinicians make better and quicker care decisions.

Attila Ferik, Sr Director - Software Engineering, GE Healthcare   source: HVL

On HVL Kick-off day – Attila Ferik, Sr Director - Software Engineering, GE Healthcare spoke about the future of Healthcare, how GE Healthcare envisions.

As the region moves towards an increased use of renewable energy, the need to ensure a steady supply of cheap, reliable energy to fuel growth remains. Emerging Europe talks to Michael Keroulle about how the region can ensure the right balance.

Michael Keroulle, CCO at GE Steam Power  source: Emerging Europe

That’s because GE Aviation and Lufthansa Technik have teamed up to form the joint venture XEOS, which this April did something never done before in GE’s network of Services shops—induct a GEnx-2B engine for overhaul in a plant designed and built new with the latest technology and efficient work practices.

“XEOS combines the operational knowledge and expertise of a world-leading airline’s service division like Lufthansa Technik, from one side, with design and manufacturing capabilities and excellence of a global OEM like GE Aviation,” said Thomas Boettger, CEO of XEOS. “It is a work scope from which the airline itself, Lufthansa, but also GE Aviation customers, can all benefit.”

XEOS has started performing maintenance on GEnx-2B engines and will welcome GE9X engines after the GE9X enters service in 2020. The opening of the $267 million (USD) facility in Poland comes nearly four years after GE Aviation and Lufthansa first announced plans for XEOS at the 2015 Paris Air Show.