Central Europe Continues to Emerge as Tech Powerhouse

A region steeped in tradition and industry

When you think of central Europe, you probably think of forests and lakes, impressive gothic churches, or the architecture of Prague. Maybe you are familiar with the beautiful square in Krakow, the white horses of Hungary, or the fantastic pastries in Austria. The region is dominated by mountains and rivers with beautiful towns and cities nestling in the valley with stunning bridges spanning vast waterways. This area of Europe has also been a center of heavy industry, be that coal, steel, or quarrying. In addition, these countries are home to car plants and other significant manufacturing sites. Agriculture is a massive element of the economy here and Poland alone exports €32 billion of foodstuffs each year.

A hotbed for tech

What you might not know, however, is that these countries are also rapidly emerging as centers of tech excellence. Silicon Valley might be the most famous region for tech innovation, but the companies that made it famous, like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, have been looking further afield for talent.

The four central European countries of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary are known as the Visegrad Group. In 1991, in the post-communist era, these four countries came together to promote better communication and cooperation between them and help with their accession to the EU. They understood that part of their strength was the high level of education, particularly math-based education, that they offered their students. This has resulted in a highly-trained tech-savvy workforce emerging.

Sky High Real Estate

While Silicon Valley prospered, real estate prices in California rocketed. In addition, the tech companies were having to pay astronomically high salaries to attract the best people to work in their organization. Wages in central Europe were more reasonable, so it made sense for them to open offices here. As a result, Microsoft now operates from Prague, Warsaw, Bratislava, and Budapest. Where Microsoft goes, the other tech giants are never far behind.

Home Grown Talent

While the international companies opened premises across the region, there were also plenty of central European entrepreneurs looking to create an impact too. For example, the online presentation platform Prezi was developed in Hungary, Avast in the Czech Republic, and the cybersecurity company ESET hails from Slovakia. Meanwhile, Polish tech entrepreneurs have found extraordinary success in the gaming industry.

Gaming

Data that the PKO BP bank has recently released shows that Poland is the world’s fourth largest exporter of video games in the world. The games coming out of Poland account for 6.5% of the total video games market and are worth €1.24 billion to the country’s economy. On the other hand, the USA is the world’s largest importer of video games, and so a rather neat circular economy has started to emerge.

Poland’s leading game studio is Projekt Red. Their game The Witcher launched in 2007 and has now sold over 40 million units around the world. The game is based on a series of fantasy novels by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. As has been seen in Silicon Valley, when one successful company emerges, clusters of others spring up.

Promised Land – where art and tech come together

CD Projekt Red has been a driving force in the development of a leading tech art festival called Promised Land. The festival brings together creatives working in film, gaming, and other creative industries. The festival takes place in the Polish city of Lodz. Leading and collaborating in the festival are names like Disney, Pixar Animation Studios, and MachineGames. There were also representatives from Capcom who, amongst other things, used the same technology to create video slot games which are popular at online casinos in Poland.

The event attracts delegates from around the world keen to learn from the professionals at the top of their game. There are workshops, lectures, and opportunities to meet some of the biggest artist names in the industry, including 3D animators, storytellers, experts in motion capture, art directors, and fine artists.