 We're here at ITU Telecom World 2015 in Budapest, Hungary, and I'm very pleased to be joined by Isidro Lasso Ballesteros, who is the head of sector for Startup Europe. Mr. Ballesteros, thank you very much for being with us today. I'd like to start off by talking about Startup Europe. What is the aim of Startup Europe? Well, Startup Europe is the initiative for the European Commission to support startups in all the phases of growth. We are focusing essentially on two set of activities. One is networking activities, ensuring that the startups in Europe have access to the right network, they have visibility in front of the right investors, corporates, etc. The second set of actions we do is to inform our colleagues, policy makers in the different departments of the European Commission about how the startups needs can be taken into account when preparing new policies at the EU level. And what concrete examples of innovation driving socially economic development have most impressed you? So now everything that has to be with the sharing economy is impressing me from the famous ones that we are having in mind from Uber to Airbnb to any new one who is thinking on sharing the pavement in front of your house, etc., etc., for parking to others when you are not there. Anything that has to do with sharing economy is impressing me because of the potential that these kind of apps have to disrupt the economy as we consider today. And I think the sharing economy is going to have a dramatical, fundamental impact on the economy and the society of the future. In your opinion, what concrete measures can government and industry take to encourage entrepreneurship and SMEs in the ICT sector? So certainly everything that has to do with networking, with facilitating, and as I will talk first about the government, certainly to become a facilitator to ensure that the main players of the ecosystem, they are able to talk to one another, to ensure that the corporates start considering M&A measures and acquisition as an essential part of the research and innovation activities. M&A is not a separate set of activities, it's an essential part of the research and innovation. This is how the most innovative companies in the world, all the names that come to your mind from Silicon Valley, they are doing like that. They are innovating through acquiring, acquiring starters. So this is something that the government should also encourage the corporates to do. And finally, mingle with the starters, wherever they are. Don't ask them to come to your office, go wherever they are, mingle with them and listen from them, which are the policies that need to be drafted to support them. What's the importance of collaboration, in particular in private public partnerships, in driving innovation and entrepreneurship? Yeah, certainly the public government has a role to do in facilitating, in good policymaking. The private sector, being corporates with small players, have also an important role to do, first to work together between themselves and also to collaborate with the public administration. The public administration will never be able to prepare good policies if we don't talk to the starters and to the corporates. And the starters and the corporates should not be two different worlds. They should start also to mingle one another and to contaminate one another. This is essential. So that's the power of networking. And we have good examples like Wajuk, who got 650,000 euros thanks to the networking activities we, as the European Commission within the Starter Europe, we facilitated today. And there are other examples that we have prepared at least with all the examples in the StarterEuroClub.edu, that is the website of Starter Europe. And you can have there all the examples and all the networks. We have a network of accelerators, a network of corporates and starters, a network of investors. We have networks connecting Madrid, with Berlin, with Milano, with Dublin, all this connecting Rome, with Vilnius, Stockholm. So all the things that you can do in networks pays off. And we have now success cases demonstrating that this is the way forward. And what are your main names in participating here in ITU Telecom World 2015? So, well, my main name here was to learn from what is happening in other parts of the world, because here I have the inputs, essentially, from the member states in Europe, and also from the states, from the Silicon Valley in particular, because we have close collaboration with them, but we are sometimes missing the other perspectives. And today I'm learning a lot from what is happening in Africa. Africa is one of the most entrepreneurial, the most entrepreneurial continent in the world, maybe together with some parts of Asia. So there's a lot of things to learn from them. Of course, they have a percentage of jump operation that is hugely disproportionately bigger than the one we have in Europe that also have an impact, but there are certainly a lot of things to learn from them. And then, secondly, try to contribute to a small grain of rice to tell them our experience so that maybe they can also learn from what we have, for the failures we have made. And what's your main message here for participants here at Budapest and also around the world listening to this interview and watching this interview? So I think that you are a policymaker. You should mingle with your local starters. Don't go far away, don't go to Silicon Valley, mingle with your local ecosystem of starters. Think and have clear in your mind that a starter is very different to an SME. This is extremely important. And then if you are, however, a corporate, then start realizing and start collecting evidences how the most innovative companies nowadays are not the ones who spend a lot of money on research and innovation in the company, but are the ones who are emerging and acquiring startups. And then for the startups, you say, keep trying, keep going. And please also take into account that we need to learn from you. We need to hear from you. So spend a small amount of time also in telling us via Twitter, et cetera, what is what you need or which is the problem you are experiencing because we are ready to willing to listen and to add based on your comment. But we need to know. If we do something wrong, we need that you tell us. So this will be my three messages. And the best way to get in contact with you is? So you can follow us. You can follow me in Twitter, Sidro Lasso. So I-S-I-D-R-O-L-A-S-O. You can follow also the Startup Europe in Startup EU. And then we have a group in Facebook, Startup Europe, with several thousands of followers as well. And this is the best way to learn what we are doing to get in touch with us, to tell us via Facebook or Twitter if you have any problem that we can add. This is nowadays the quickest way to get in touch with us. Mr. Beliseros, thank you very much indeed being with us in the studio today. Thank you, Max.