In Zaragoza, a center for technological innovation in Spain, Innovate!Europe kicked off last night, May 4, 2009. Goal of this programme is to accelerate the global expansion of Europe's most promising startups. All the finalists are put on the website of VatorTV, where voting can take place. (The NextWomen was selected as one of the most promising startups and finalists, doing good with 77 followers and more than 700 views). Other companies that participate are CMYPITCH, Zemanta, CityAmigo, and Nimbuzz.

Established in 2005 the conference is in its fourth edition.The opening night of the event had as theme: Thriving in a crisis. In the opening speech, the entrepreneurial environment of different countries was covered, comparing Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden and Silicon Valley. In the mentor roundtable, recipes for entrepreneurs to cope with the recession were given and how countries should foster entrepreneurship. The 8 TIPS:

• focus on customers/scalability and cashflow and cut costs
• accept failure and mistakes; fail quickly
• build business, take risks
• stay out of the way of government
• disrupt and make things unstable
• make a difference, it gets you motivated
• get into science education
• make your passion into a business, don't think about upside $$