Denmark’s government wants to recreate Silicon Valley ecosystem with SCALEit

Next week twenty Danish technology startups will travel to Silicon Valley on a new initiative set up by The Innovation Center Denmark called SCALEit. The startups will be exposed to the valley’s unique ecosystem for a week in the hope they will take the skills and information they learn back to Denmark where they will grow their startups and contribute to the Danish economy through revenue and job creation.

Just like many other governments in the world, Denmark too has Silicon Valley Fever, realizing that creating a fertile breading ground for startups is paramount to their position on the world stage as the we move towards a knowledge-based economy where if scaled right, a startup can be a dominant global company in a relatively small amount of time. Skype’s recent sale to Microsoft for $8.5billion is a great example of wealth creation from a company that was just a startup in 2003, not to mention co-founded by Danish entrepreneur Janus Friis.

Organized by Søren Rønne Therkelsen, IT Accociate at Innovation Center Denmark, SCALE.it will be taking Danish entrepreneurs on an exciting program including a launch event with the valley’s entrepreneurial veteran and serial entrepreneur Steve Blank plus they will be visiting innovation hubs and accelerators like The Black Box Mansion.

Innovation Center Denmark has an ambitious objective call to be a leading knowledge-based economy by 2015. The center  connects researchers, companies and ideas between Denmark and the US in high-tech areas; CleanTech, Information & Communications Tech and Life Sciences.

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In a country with a population of only six million it’s impressive that over twenty startups applied for the SCALE.It initiative which is partly funded by the Danish government, if SCALE.it can be the gateway to Denmark producing a few more companies on par with Skype then Denmark will succeed in their mission to be world leaders in the knowledge-based economy.