“Innovation Champions” are countries that offer the best conditions for the development of new ideas and products. Photo: Pixabay
Prague, Jan 16 (CTK) – The Czech Republic ranks tenth in an Innovation Scorecard study published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organises CES, the world’s biggest consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) writes today.
According to the study, the country belongs to the elite group of countries labelled as “Innovation Champions.” These are countries that offer the best conditions for the development of new ideas and products, HN writes.
Finland is the number one ranking country, followed by Britain, Australia, Sweden and the USA according to the study, HN writes.
The Czech Republic ranks in a flattering tenth place before Austria, Germany and Israel, while France ranks 18th in spite of the fact that it hosts more start-ups every year than any other country.
The country succeeded mainly owing to its laws, which experts assessed as friendly towards new trends such as the sharing economy, use of drones and autonomous cars. Particularly for the possibility of testing and using self-driving cars, the country scored its best mark of all the assessed parameters, HN writes.
Only car makers in Singapore and Australia may pride in even better conditions as regards innovations.
The country also scored well in the categories such as available workforce and personal and political freedom.
Some of the poorer scores it received were for the average Internet connection speed and business activities, HN writes.
With its average fixed Internet connection speed of 12.15 Mbps, the country ranks 23rd out of the total of 38 countries assessed, HN writes.
It also ranks the same as regards its business environment due to the low number of emerging small companies.
The country’s overall ranking is further pushed down by the high tax imposed on services such as Netflix and Spotify.
The Czech Republic’s ranking among Innovation Champions is surprising particularly in comparison with some of the other countries that scored worse. Israel, for example, produced a number of innovations, some of which impacted the global industry such the Siri voice assistant, 3D camera Kinect implementing the Face ID and iPhoneX functions.
The Czech Republic, on the other hand, is still awaiting such significant innovations. According to the CTA, it has what it takes for such innovations to make a breakthrough globally, HN concludes.
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