Fourteen years are not a lot. But in IT terms, 14 years is history. And Microsoft has a long history when it comes to start-ups. It was in fact in 2002, that Microsoft started opening its first Microsoft Innovation Centres to deliver world-class resources to students who wanted to become entrepreneurs and give life to their start-ups.

Today, 100 Microsoft Innovation Centres are present in over 33 countries around the world including Malta, serving as local hubs that provide resources and support for students and entrepreneurs, helping to accelerate the creation of new companies, jobs, and growth of the local ecosystem.

“We value the innovation and disruptive thinking start-ups bring to our sector immensely because they enable us to monitor trends and technologies on a global scale,” Edward Portelli, who heads Microsoft’s Innovation Centre in Malta, says. “In turn, all these efforts bring business to us, enabling us to serve our current customers and partners better as well as to acquire new customers and users for our platform and services.”

The MIC project was further augmented in 2008 with the launch of the Microsoft BizSpark programme to provide entrepreneurs with free software, support, and visibility to help start-ups succeed.

“As a Bizspark+ Partner, the Microsoft Innovation Centre is greatly positioned to issue cloud grants to local start-ups.

“In Malta, in fact, Microsoft operates its BizSpark project from the MIC where we work with Maltese software start-ups to assist them in the use of innovative technology solutions to develop their business,” Mr Portelli added.

Over 100,000 start-ups and 1,500 partners from more than 100 countries have benefited from Microsoft’s YouthSpark and BizSpark programmes since 2008. In Malta the MIC has granted over €1.5 million worth of cloud services through the Microsoft Innovation Centre.

“Malta’s Microsoft Innovation Centre has been achieving very positive results. In just three years, it has been an incubator for over 80 start-ups. More importantly, we are also aware that local start-ups are exploiting cloud technology more than similar start-ups in other countries. In fact, over 10 per cent of start-up cloud consumption across Microsoft’s CEE Multicountry Region is by Maltese start-ups,” Mr Portelli adds.

“Entrepreneurship is an increasingly global phenomenon. To date, Microsoft calculates there could be around 400 million entrepreneurs worldwide. These provide groundbreaking research, new ideas and trigger the emergence of new start-ups. Increasing access to funding and ubiquitous technology have lowered the barriers of turning a great idea into a business.”

This is the rationale behind Microsoft’s latest drive when in 2012, Microsoft opened its first Start-up Accelerator in Israel with the intention of empowering entrepreneurs and supporting products such as Azure and XBOX. Since then, the programme has grown to host seven Microsoft Accelerators in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, London, Paris, Seattle and Tel-Aviv.

Didem Un Ates, Global Partnerships Director for Microsoft’s Accelerator Programme is currently visiting Malta as part of Microsoft’s participation in Zest, a two-day digital business event being organised by the Malta Communications Authority in collaboration with Takeoff.

“Malta’s MIC is linked to the London Accelerator Programme. Of course, this does not mean that every start-up hosted at the MIC becomes eligible to participate in the Accelerator Programme but being linked to the London Programme means that we can get access to contacts and to their bigger ecosystem. Didem’s presence in Malta to address the ZEST conference strengthens the relationship between the Malta MIC and Microsoft’s London accelerator,” Mr Portelli says.

In what tangible ways does Microsoft support start-ups?

“We help start-ups grow their businesses and see them mature into enterprise-ready companies by scaling every aspect of their business – from coaching, team culture development and recruiting talent to creating distribution channels with global Fortune 500s, learning how to work with big corporates and developing new markets.

“We also provide support for marketing, finance and tech management and offer a variety of technologies and services like cloud computing, developer tools, software and open source technologies to support the start-up’s growth process. For start-ups that are members of select accelerators and incubators around the world, Microsoft also offers up to $120,000 a year of Azure cloud services through BizSpark Plus,” Mr Portelli concludes.

This article first appeared in the Zest supplement carried in The Sunday Times of Malta.

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