Cross Czech a.s.(Czech Republic)

Project Co-ordinator

Czech Republic

www.crossczech.cz

Cross Czech was founded in 1992 in Prague. Initially, the company focused on adult education activities including language courses, oratory courses and translation services. Since 2001, Cross Czech. has also developed research activities in the area of machine translation. Since 1997 Cross Czech has co-operated intensively with Czech educational and cultural institutions, helping them to promote and present their activities on a European level, to take part in EU funded projects and to handle the managerial and technical side of work in the area of ICT in relation to culture, education and social policies. These activities have now grown to encompass further research and development in the area of mobile technologies, sustainable development, enhancement of active employment policy, support for SMEs etc.

Cross Czech co-operates intensively with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic as a consulting company in the area of harmonization of EU strategic development. Similar activities are carried out with the Ministry of Informatics, where Cross Czech is a consultant in the area of EC programmes such as eTen, eContentplus and Safer Internet Plus. On behalf of the Ministry of Informatics Cross Czech is the Czech representative of the European initiative related to the participation of organizations from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Austria in the eContentplus programme and to create new partnerships with these countries.

Cross Czech co-operates closely with the Ministry for Local Development which is responsible for the implementation of the Structural Funds in the Czech Republic. It is the expert for evaluating horizontal priorities in the Information Society. Cross Czech experts are also project evaluators of proposals submitted to several Operational Programmes, especially those funded from the European Social Fund.

In the area of research and development, Cross Czech co-operates with the NCP for FP6 in the Czech Republic (Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences). Cross Czech. is also the external expert providing training and consulting in FP6, by virtue of its experience as external evaluators of the 5th Framework Programme (IST, Raising Public Awareness of Science and Technology), 6th Framework Programme (IST, Science and Society, Marie-Curie Actions) and eContent.

Cross Czech’s areas of activity include:

• Evaluation of systems and technologies in use in relation to the state-of-the-art
• Preserving cultural and educational resources in suitable, compatible, interoperable and up-to-date digital formats
• Information/content management,
• Preparation of data to be exploited in Internet and mobile environments.
• Elaborating dissemination and exploitation strategies at European level
• Taking part in European programmes such as the 6th Framework Programme, eContent Plus, Culture 2000, Phare 2003, Structural Funds, Socrates, eLearning, eTen, Media Plus, Safer Internet Plus, etc.
• Searching for appropriate European level partnerships for development of national activities
• Consulting on project preparation, project writing, budgeting
• Training activities in the area of:

­ EU programmes, funds and initiatives and project participation
­ Project preparation
­ Project management
­ Financing, budgeting, co-financing, costs claims and interim and final reports
­ Training made to measure for companies and individuals

• Project management and administration
• Cross Czech has participated in the following EU-funded projects:
• BLEN (Bobbin Lace European Network) Raphael Programme
• CHIMER (Childrens Heritage: Interactive Models for Evolving Repositories) FP5
• eTITLE (Online subtitles application for TV and movie industry) eContent programme –
• FINANCE-NMS-IT (Creating of set of indicators for preparing and management of European projects) FP6
• CEEC IST NET (European network helping SMEs with participation in EU funded projects) FP6
• MINERVA Plus: Cross Czech is external consultant of Ministry of Culture FP6
• EU Manazer (RLZ - training courses for project managers) - Phare 2003