It seems like yesterday that I was standing in front of a small audience at London Town Hall launching Meeco. In fact it was June 2014. So much has changed for us since then including two successful funding rounds, bi-monthly software releases, launching MeCast¹ and recently the launch of Meeco Labs².
I’m very excited to announce that we have now opened an office in London with a satellite office in Berlin. Like all our achievements, none would be possible without the support and encouragement we have received from our community.I have been in Europe over the past few weeks working with our new team, meeting with partners and seeing the results from our first successful Meeco Labs projects.
Why Europe and why now?
The European region has consistently led the way in its awareness and desire to explore alternative models to the current personal data market. Enterprise, consumers and governments across Europe are beginning to take real action towards people-centric solutions.
Additionally, legislation such as the General Data Protections Regulations act (GDPR) and the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) are driving compliance and opportunities for organisations to respect and protect the personal data and privacy of Europeans.In order for Meeco to serve this rapidly evolving marketplace, meet the needs of our existing European members and enterprise partners, it became obvious we needed a permanent presence in Europe. For now our small and growing team is based in London and Berlin.
London is a great base for working across Europe. Proactive government support and a growing focus on fostering entrepreneurship and innovation has created a complimentary start-up ecosystem, alongside the established enterprise and financial services markets. This combination of old and new is producing a vibrant and open attitude to new business models and alternative, disruptive approaches that align to Meeco’s manifesto.
Berlin represents all that is new in Europe, a hub for creative and alternative thinking. It is successfully attracting great digital talent across all sectors, alongside youth culture and a genuine interest in emerging social movements, privacy and data empowerment supported by a thriving technology community.Whilst both cities support and enable Meeco’s global expansion, it is our people that really make the difference. I have the privilege of working again with Andy Lambros, along with supporting the goal for Nathan Kinch, our newest team member to relocate to London with his wife Bianca and help Aviva Killian our existing digital producer to realise one of her dreams to live in Berlin. Here is a little about the European team.
As Commercial Director for Meeco Europe, Andy has joined to help us set-up and manage our existing and new enterprise partnerships, whilst continuing to foster new relationships across the region. Andy contributes more than 30 years’ expertise in consulting and technical services implementation. He is experienced in all aspects of consulting from advisory, management to turnaround and technical consulting across ERP, Fintech and business model innovation. Andy is warm-hearted with a great (British) sense of humour and is totally besotted with the recent addition of his two beautiful grandsons.
Nathan joins us as Head of Experience and Meeco Labs. Nathan brings strong product, prototyping and customer experience design expertise. Prior to leaving Australia Nathan was instrumental in helping set-up innovation initiatives for global enterprise brands. Whilst focussed on how technology drives change, he has operated across verticals such as finance, banking, social networking and aged-care. Nathan has been following Meeco’s development since our very first prototype and will be running our growing list of Meeco Lab projects across Europe. Nathan's now been on the ground for a couple of weeks and synthesised some of his observations recently in this article³ titled, Will individuals ever own their data?
Aviva has been a key part of the Meeco team for nearly two years. Her relocation to Berlin comes as her venture there has proven fertile ground for creative thinking. Aviva's work for Meeco has grown through a variety of roles, starting out as an intern, she has worked her way to becoming Meeco's lead digital producer and community manager. Aviva will continue to head up our media production and social media activities and support Andy and Nathan across our expanding European footprint.
Globally, we see that tides are turning to favour a new digital era, one that aligns the needs of both individuals and organisations, one that is beginning to respect the sovereignty and ownership of personal information, and optimises the way personal data is both collected and used to create mutual value. We believe that having a European presence is crucial to continuing our pioneering role within this movement.We are thrilled to welcome these new team members to Meeco. Stay tuned for some more news on our latest releases and initiatives in the coming weeks.
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¹ This web page is no longer available.
² This web page is no longer available. To view an archived copy click here.
³ This web page is no longer available. To view an archived copy click here.
