Tech Trends takes a look at the first-ever government run crowdfunding platform and what it hopes to achieve for the municipality of Biscay.

Crowdfunding has come a long way over the last decade or so, and it is fair to say that most people are not only familiar with the concept but have supported some sort of crowdfunded project themselves. Increasingly, therefore, the model is being seen as an essential part of the mix where it comes to financing not only individual projects and companies, but entire ecosystems. We’ve recently reported on such moves being made in places like Cornwall.

Crowdfunding has come a long way over the last decade or so
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The municipality of Biscay (Bizkaia) has gone a step further, however, launching its own equity-based crowdfunding platform. This is the first of its kind to be officially backed by a government for the purpose of encouraging investment and entrepreneurship in the region. The idea is to encourage ordinary people to invest in Basque start-ups by connecting individual small investors and companies seeking funding.

Biscay has launched its own equity-based crowdfunding platform, the first of its kind to be officially backed by a government
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The Crowdfunding Bizkaia website is initially launching with four start–ups, with another four set to follow shortly. The target is to manage between ten to twelve projects a year, selected from a pool of around thirty applicants currently being considered.

Biscay is known for innovation in many areas including its world-renowned gastronomy and education system
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Crowdfunding has become an essential part of the mix in financing not only individual projects and companies, but entire ecosystems
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Biscay is known for innovation in many areas including its world-renowned gastronomy and education system which is amongst the top in Europe and where most parents nowadays opt to have their children be taught in the Basque language.

Once a regional start-up is accepted onto the platform, it has fifty days to raise its funding target from the public. Once that is achieved, they will also have the option to apply for the government to match the amount raised – up to €30,000 per start-up. Bizkaia has initially set aside a €240,000 fund for this purpose.

This is not just about providing start-ups with seed investment, however, as each business accepted onto the platform also receives a year of free business mentoring and support, helping them reach their growth targets and opening new avenues for financing.

Citizen investors from any country are able to invest a minimum of €75-1,000 and a maximum of €3,000 per project
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Once a start-up is accepted onto the platform, it has fifty days to raise its funding target from the public
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Unlike private sector platforms such as Crowdcube – which allow any business to pitch for funds, the Crowdfunding Bizkaia platform only hosts business which have been vetted by the government to ensure that investors’ money is only channeled towards viable projects.

Businesses from any sector (apart from real-estate and finance) can apply as the aim is to promote a broad range of ventures to strengthen the economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region. Start-ups seeking investment must therefore be headquartered in Biscay, which is hoped will also encourage outside companies to come to the area.

“We want to help grow good projects and attract the best ideas to the territory. Crowdfunding Bizkaia is our new and unique financing tool that offers investors the security of projects that have been screened by an expert team for their economic and financial viability,” says Imanol Pradales, Regional Deputy of Economic Development.

The four companies initially joining the platform are We Are Testers, an online marketing research tool; WATS, a social initiative created to eradicate violence in sports; FractalMed, a mathematical tool that forecasts disease progression in multiple sclerosis patients; and PoliMaker, a biodegradable thermoplastic polymer capable of becoming almost anything.

Juan Manuel Villanueva from FractalMed, said that crowdfunding is an important tool for developing social capital as well as helping start-ups overcome initial barriers such as financing.

Each company that applies to be accepted onto the platform is subjected to a rigorous financial and economic appraisal– similar to the due diligence process which would be conducted by a venture capital firm. This is very different from the situation in similar crowdfunding platforms where it is mostly up to the individual investor to assess the start-up’s viability. This high level of government scrutiny is a key differentiator for investors.

‘Citizen’ investors from any country are able to invest a minimum of €75-1,000 (varying from project to project) and a maximum of €3,000 per project. The annual maximum contribution each investors can make to start-ups on the platform is €10,000. Each company sets its own minimum contribution level, which translates into investor shares and eventually yields a return when a company makes a successful exit.

Each company that applies to be accepted onto the platform is subjected to a rigorous financial and economic appraisal
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This exit strategy again can differ from start-up to start-up, but examples of typical exit plans can include share buyback schemes, IPOs, or trade sales. As part of their investor pitch, each company provides an exit timeline, giving an estimate of when funders can expect a return on their investment.

Businesses accepted onto the platform also receive a year of free mentoring and support
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Another differentiating factor from traditional equity crowdfunding platforms is that the commission fees are substantially lower than the market average– with just 1% of the investment value going to Crowdfunding Bizkaia to cover its running costs.

This platform is just one part of the Biscay government’s larger effort to boost sustainable growth and situate the Basque Country as one of Europe’s most attractive destinations for entrepreneurs.

Each start-up provides an exit timeline, giving an estimate of when funders can expect a return on their investment
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One recent example of this was the launch of the Euro Fond Innova, where ordinary citizens can invest between £3,000 and £5,000 in a fund that will lend to Biscay start-ups in exchange for a tax rebate. The fund aims to raise €100 – 120 million to support Basque business. This is coupled with a range of other investment funds aimed at promoting local innovation. These include the Development Fund, a financing tool focusing on SMEs in the technology sector; FEIS (Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Fund), geared towards socially beneficial business ventures; and Mikro, aimed at developing microenterprises, including cooperatives.

The Deputy General of Bizkaia, Unai Rementeria, explained that his government’s priority is to foster start-ups and encourage business growth through a strong industrial policy and a business-friendly taxation system. “This is one of many measures that makes Biscay an attractive place for entrepreneurship with the ability to attract projects from other parts of the Basque Country and Europe,” he concludes.

The platform is just one part of the Biscay government’s effort to boost sustainable growth
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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasioon Twitter.

The post Crowdfunding Boosting Innovation appeared first on Tech Trends.

When tech can translate everything, language becomes about seeking your identity in a globalized and digital world.

Technology has made it incredibly easy for people to connect and communicate with one another. Not only is it possible to look up the meaning of any word on your phone, but there are countless applications that can live translate presentations or even speech, bringing us ever closer to the Star Trek Universal Translator scenario where we will be able to understand what another person (or alien) is saying, whatever language they happen to speak.

Technology has made it easy for people to connect and communicate
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It seems language learning as we know it is fast becoming obsolete. In Britain, for example, the number of students taking modern foreign languages has plummeted because British children – already spoilt by the fact that English is so widely spoken around the world – have become increasingly reliant on tools such as Google Translate.

It seems language learning as we know it is fast becoming obsolete
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People are turning back to their local roots and identity as a way of navigating the flux and uncertainty they find themselves surrounded with
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Yet at the same time as British teens are turning their back on traditionally valued languages such as German, French and Spanish, Britain is experiencing a strong surge of interest in local idioms, with take-up of languages such as Irish and Scottish Gaelic up by 33% over the past five years. In Wales, where the survival of traditional communities had previously been threatened by young people moving way, there is now a growing demand for Welsh-medium education and over a quarter of pupils are taught in Welsh.

Britain is experiencing a strong surge of interest in local idioms
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Yet these seemingly contradictory phenomena are actually related. They’re simply different reactions to growing automation and globalization, which renders many of the skills we used to value obsolete and erases traditional borders. And this is leading people to turn back to their local roots and identity as a way of navigating the flux and uncertainty they find themselves surrounded with.

Globalization erases traditional borders
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A recent poll of 15 countries showed a common language is the most important factor in defining a nation’s identity. So the feeling expressed by Welsh First Minister’s Carwin Jones when he said that “Welsh is part of what defines us as a nation” is something that chimes across many cultures, particularly ones that were traditionally oppressed through being denied access to their language, as was the case with First Nations people in Canada.

A common language is considered essential in defining your identity
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“Knowing your language can be so important in developing cultural identity, and having cultural identity also develops resilience in a context that we’re dealing with so many problems such as youth suicide,”

agrees Maggie MacDonnell, who this year won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize awarded by the Varkey Foundation for her work with the Inuit community of Nunavik. Her region, neslted in the deep Canadian Arctic has the highest rate of Inuktitut speakers amongst all Inuit groups worldwide:

“All my students speak Inuktitut, and are taught exclusively in the language from primary to grade four. It’s so important that kids have a sense of belonging and pride in who they are and that’s what makes the preservation of language for our indigenous people so profound at this moment,” she explains

Being a citizen of the world is about constantly negotiating multiple identities,“ adds Pello Salaburu, director of the Basque Language Institute. “We call ourselves Euskaldunak, which roughly translates as ‘people who own the Basque language.’ To be Basque is to speak Basque, and living in a globalized society it is important to have different identities you can match with, otherwise you feel lost.”

Being a global citizen means constantly negotiating multiple identities
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Only a few decades ago, children caught speaking Basque in northern Spain would have been punished at school. But as of 2017, 54% of the region’s population are Basque speakers (pdf in Spanish), and in 2016 52% of university students opted for being taught in Basque instead of Spanish.

Looking inward to turn outward

Instead of creating insular and inward-looking communities, learning the hyper-local languages of their regions actually allows young people to develop greater flexibility and resilience. This in turn helps to better equip them to deal with the effects of globalization; in the 21st century, the ability to not feel threatened by diversity is becoming a rare and useful skill in itself.

“There shouldn’t be a conflict between the local and the global, but I find that children who are not taught other languages struggle to grasp the concept that diversity isn’t a threat,” says Mari Tere Ojanguren, the principal of Lauaxeta ikastola, which is considered one of the best schools in Spain. “A person that only comes in contact with one language cannot truly understand other cultures. By the age of four our children are immersed in three different languages. So they can be in Abu Dhabi or New York, and they can understand that others around them are different, and be at ease.”

In a world where disruption has become the norm, those connections are becoming more important than ever
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 “The measure of usefulness of a language becomes not how many people speak it, but how few.” Ojanguren believes that because her school’s curriculum is taught entirely in Euskera (the native name of the language of the Basque people), it gives her pupils a significant competitive advantage for the future. “I don’t believe the success of the language is measured so much by how much time you spend using it, but in being able to communicate in that language as a community. It’s like belonging to a club, and young people use it to connect to fellow Basques whether they happen to be in Milan, Paris, Berlin, or Boise.” (Fun fact: The Mayor of Idaho’s capital is himself a Basque speaker, and the city has the largest concentration of Basques outside Europe, at 15,000).

Language has always provided groups of people with a common sense of identity and has served to connect diasporas when those groups became geographically dispersed
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This is something that MacDonnell also sees with her students, who still predominantly choose to converse in Inuktitut, even as they acquire English and French language skills. “As they move away to study, it remains a way for them to connect to Inuit communities in the South [of Canada]. It forms an immediate bond between people who’ve never met,” she says.

In this context, the measure of usefulness of a language becomes not how many people speak it, but how few
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In this context, the measure of usefulness of a language does indeed become not how many people speak it, but how few. Language has always provided groups of people with a common sense of identity and has served to connect diasporas when those groups became geographically dispersed. In a world where disruption has become the norm, those connections are becoming more important than ever.

Article originally published on Quartz

The surprising reason why you should learn a local dialect instead of a global languagehttps://t.co/QjYI54Afud

— Quartz (@qz) September 26, 2017

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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Translating Technology and Finding Your Identity appeared first on Tech Trends.

Investment is a pain point for any business, but small tech start-ups outside of main hubs like Silicon Valley often struggle to convince investors to take a chance on them.

And if you’re an average saver, putting all your hard-earned nest egg into one risky venture is hardly the most appealing or well-advised proposition either, let’s be honest. Most start-ups fail, and that’s not a bad thing. It takes failure for ideas to develop and funding the ecosystem as a whole is what makes the tech-fuelled economy of places such as London, Berlin, San Francisco and New York thrive in the long-term.

An innovative approach to tech investment is being pioneered in Spain's Basque region
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Those who are able to spread that risk make money over the long run by capitalizing on the start-ups which do bring in the big returns, but ordinarily that option isn’t open to the smaller players, who are mostly stuck with dismal returns brought on by the persistently low base interest rates we’ve been stuck with for the past few years.

Which is why we were interested to explore an innovative new approach being pioneered in the Basque country, an autonomous region of Spain which is keen to foster their tech entrepreneurial ecosystem by allowing ordinary savers to invest their money in tech, without the risk. It’s what’s known in the trade as a win-win, and if they pull it off it could very well provide an interesting template for other governments to follow.

Read all about it on The Next Web

How investing in a startup can be safer than leaving money in the bank https://t.co/D4d4oWrm7u pic.twitter.com/xtVd3mzMQO

— TNW @ SXSW (@TheNextWeb) March 14, 2017

The post Making Angels: New Scheme Encourages Savers to Invest in Tech appeared first on Tech Trends.