Zoltan Horvath
Professor
European Institute of Innovation & Technology
Netherlands

Biography
Prof. Zoltan Horvath, Director of the EIT ICT Labs Budapest Associate Partner Group, graduated as a teacher of mathematics, physics and computer science in 1986 and received his Ph.D. in 1996 from Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest. He has been teaching at the university since 1986 and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Informatics as well as Head of the Department of Programming Languages and Compilers. Before he was appointed as Dean, he had been Vice-Rector for International Affairs since 2010.

In 2002, he won the Informatics Teacher of the Year award from the Hungarian CIO Association. Between 2003 and 2006, he received the Bolyai Research Scholarship, and he was awarded the Master Teacher OTDT Gold Medal in 2009. The CEEPUS network led by him won the CEEPUS Ministers’ Prize in 2004 and in 2007. He is Chairman of the Committee of the Hungarian Rectors' Conference on Information Sciences. Prof. Zoltan Horvath received the Knight's Cross from the Order of Merit of Hungary from the President of Hungary on 20 August 2013. He received the award, among others, for the establishment of EIT ICT Labs' Co-location Centre in Budapest. He became Doctor Honoris Causa at the University Babes-Bolyai of Cluj-Napoca in 2014.

He is PC member of ACM Erlang Workshop 2013, CSCS 2014, BCI 2015 and SQAMIA 2015.

Abstract
The role of ICT innovation for the development

EIT ICT Labs as one of the first three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has been running innovation projects focusing on the hot topics of ICT since 2010. EIT ICT Labs intends to boost the European innovation in ICT by implementing the knowledge triangle model: educating the next generation of ICT entrepreneurs, helping European start-ups and SMEs enter the Digital Single Market, and supporting consortia of excellent researchers and the leading European ICT companies to bring their research results to the market. Business development is a key factor of the initiative implemented in 9 European ICT hotspots, and among them in Budapest.