About GEN in Czechia

The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) began operating in the Czech Republic in 2013, when the European Leadership and Academic Institute (ELAI) launched the country’s first national Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaign. Driven by ELAI Executive Director Lukáš Sedláček, the inaugural campaign rallied a coalition of startups, NGOs, public administration representatives and other ecosystem players around a single week of celebration. Business students from the University of Economics in Prague, under the leadership of Monika Barton, organized close to twenty additional events – shooting a viral video to encourage Czechs to start businesses and seeking the rights to a documentary on startups for screenings in cinemas across the country. By the end of GEW 2013, the campaign had engaged 25 partner organizations, run 37 activities and reached roughly 3,000 participants – an immediate signal that the country’s entrepreneurship community was ready to organize itself around a global platform. 

By its third year in 2015, GEW Czech Republic had grown into a record-breaking campaign with 65 events between November 16 and 22 and more than 5,300 participants nationwide. The flagship event, the Entrepreneurship Week Summit: From Survivors to the Winners, drew nearly 1,700 people to Prague on November 19 and offered participants 20 different workshops with successful Czech and international entrepreneurs alongside a panel discussion on the role of the state in supporting startups, with panelists from Germany and Israel. Speakers included Juraj Atlas of Liftago, Lubo Smid of STRV, Katarina Klinkova of Staffino and Lucie Bresová of Skypicker, and the Summit closed with the Start It Up! 2015 competition, won by TeskaLabs ahead of Reservio and Vitrubio. “The Global Entrepreneurship Week is a unique event for emerging entrepreneurs – one of its kind in the Czech Republic,” said Atlas.  

In 2016, the campaign expanded again to more than 100 events, up from 70 the prior year. The Summit of the Entrepreneurship Week returned on November 15 to Slovanský dům in Prague as the largest gathering for entrepreneurs and startups in the country to date, anchored by Czech and overseas speakers, seminars, workshops, conferences and specialized trade fairs. The week also featured “Art Meets Business,” pairing companies with young artists and designers, plus a business fair, franchising fair and food fair, and concluded with Get in the Ring – then one of the world’s largest startup pitch competitions – held in Prague. Off the back of the GEW campaign, ELAI extended its work into a spring counterpart, Innovation Week 2016, with patrons including Taťána le Moigne, CEO of the Czech subsidiary of Google, and Martin Lukes, vice dean for science, research and graduate studies at the Faculty of Business Economy at VŠE (Prague University of Economics and Business). 

Czech policymakers have engaged with GEN’s policy community since the early years of the campaign. Minister of Industry and Trade Jiří Cieńcala and Minister of Education Dalibor Štys lent ministerial backing to GEW 2013. Prague also hosted one of the policy-driven events organized that year around the Global Entrepreneurship Index, alongside cities such as Athens, Cairo, Frankfurt, Jakarta, London, Riyadh and Sofia. More recently, GEN has tracked Czechia’s introduction of a new startup law designed to simplify employment conditions and reduce bureaucracy for startups, including consideration of allowing pension funds to invest in the asset class – a development highlighted in GEN’s Startup State policy bulletin in 2025. 

Beyond the GEW campaign, Lukáš Sedláček has continued to help lead GEN’s national presence. Czech founders have also engaged with GEN as members of the GEN Starters Club, including Pavel Konečný, Founder and CEO of Prague-based industrial AI company Neuron Soundware. 

The country’s research community is also plugged into GEN’s knowledge networks. Czechia was among the new members welcomed into the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network (GERN) in 2023, with Martin Lukeš of Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE) serving as the country’s GERN representative. 

GEN maintains relationships with key Czech ecosystem stakeholders, including the European Leadership and Academic Institute (ELAI), Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE) and CzechInvest, the country’s national investment and business development agency. The campaign’s long-running grassroots network also draws on Czech founders, accelerators and universities anchored around Prague, with figures such as Juraj Atlas (Liftago), Lubo Smid (STRV), Katarina Klinkova (Staffino) and Lucie Bresová (Skypicker) among those who have shared the stage at national GEW events. 

GEN’s ongoing mission in the Czech Republic is to keep the country’s founders connected to global capital, talent, research and policy networks – building on more than a decade of GEW campaigning to ensure that Prague and the broader Czech ecosystem continue to grow as a recognized European hub for high-impact entrepreneurship.