Laura González-Estéfani appointed to guide the European Innovation Council (EIC)

The work of the European Innovation Council (EIC) is part of the research and innovation program of the European Union, Horizon Europe, which will be implemented starting 2021, with a 10 billion euros budget. Until 2020 the European Innovation Council has a budget of 3 billion euros

The European Commission has included two Spaniards in the exclusive group of 22 experts who will lead the strategy of the recently created European Innovation Council (EIC). This body, which was born in 2017, has a current budget of 3 billion and aims to finance the innovations with the greatest impact in Europe.

Laura González-Estéfani, CEO of TheVentureCity and Ana Maiques, CEO of Neuroelectrics will form part of the team that will guide the selection and financing of the main high-impact business ideas in the continent, reinforcing the EC’s mission to place Europe as a pole of innovation for the world.

The work of the EIC is part of the European Union’s research and innovation program, Horizon Europe, which will be implemented from 2021 and has an indicative budget of 10 billion euros.

For Laura González-Estéfani, the appointment of this group of experts in multiple disciplines is a step so that “it is no longer necessary to be in Silicon Valley, New York or Tel Aviv to achieve advances in innovation. With this idea in mind, we can make the European Innovation Council a point of reference”.

The European Commission also published a notice to recruit the first EIC program managers. Inspired by the renowned U.S. agency DARPA, EIC program managers will be experts in their fields and will work to create ecosystems of innovation and rapid growth. Applications can be submitted until July 31, 2019 12.00 CET.

About Laura González-Estéfani Laura is founder and CEO of TheVentureCity, a new business acceleration and growth model that helps diverse founders achieve global impact. Mother of three children and a dog, she founded TheVentureCity in 2017, with campuses in Madrid and Miami, as well as offices in San Francisco, Sao Paulo and El Salvador, from where she connects European, Latin American and U.S. innovation centers.

She spent more than eight years working at Facebook leading the international growth and business development. She was in charge of opening the way for Facebook in Spain when it was still a startup and became its first executive in southern Europe. She held different positions in Silicon Valley and Miami.

She has spearheaded strategic initiatives such as the first Internet.org project in Latin America to connect Cuba to the rest of the world. In addition, she worked at eBay, Siemens and Ogilvy Group. She is co-founder of esplaya.com, the first digital platform for beach tourism in Spain.

She is an active advocate for Woman in Tech, a mentor at Babson College WINLab.Entrepreneurs), mentor of Stanford’s Latino Entrepreneurship Leadership Initiative, and board member, mentor and panelist at Endeavor.