European government, companies vow to gain firm foothold in global IT race

European entrepreneurs underline their determination to boost competitiveness in the global digital race at the 10th DLD Conference in Munich on Sunday. DLD, which stands for Digital, Life and Design, is Hubert Burda Media's international conference and innovation platform. It has been evolving as one of the most renowned get-togethers of the industry. During the opening speech, Alexander Dobrindt, Germany's new minister, introduced his concept "Netzallianz - Digitales Deutschland", which aims to pool efforts for digital objectives by boosting the modernization process and materializing efficient high speed networks. Dobrindt said that he believed all people could be and must be able to have a share in the technological advances. "It is more than a change in technology, any level of innovation has to bring fairness," he added. Tim Hoettges, Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Telekom, vowed to spend every euro to build up a better infrastructure and network. "The data traffic grows worldwide, the industry in the U.S. and in Asia is still growing, but in Europe it shrinks," Hoettges said. "The variety of more than 200 carriers is one problem, another reason is the mentality of Europe, which is totally different compared with the Silicon Valley," He said. Paul-Bernhard Kallen, Chief Executive Officer of Hubert Burda Media, cited the tight regulation and taxation system in Europe as two of the main obstacles undermining the blossom of its own "Silicon Valley". "It shouldn't be a difference if your server is in Luxembourg or in Munich. But at the moment it is. You have 19 percent taxes in Germany and none in Luxembourg. This shapes industries," Kallen said. Talent shortage, however, is also a pressing factor hindering European IT companies' performance at the global arena. Ijab Madisch, Co-founder and CEO of ResearchGate, one of the fastest evolving start-ups that based in Berlin, said that though the professional network company has been expanding rapidly these years, turns to be a European success story, he has to leave Germany to bring his plan to life. Now around 70 percent of staff are non-German and the biggest segment of users, which is approximately 20 percent, are from the United States, Madisch introduced. According to the European Competitiveness Report 2013 that released late last year, the European Commission said that in the high tech sectors, the European Union (EU) has comparative advantage in pharmaceuticals but lags behind in the rest of this broad category. In the medium high-tech sectors, EU comparative advantage is lower than that of for the United States and Japan. With the motto of "Content and Context", the DLD innovation conference will focus on the future of the consumer Internet and the impact of digital media on social change. The 2014 conference takes place from Jan. 19 to 21, attracting over 1,000 attendees and 150 speakers.