Ernő Duda

He has been a long-time advocate of education reform, claiming that schools should focus on preparing children for an unforeseeable future, thus the main focus should be adaptability and life-long learning. In 2020 he was one of the initiators of Szikra Foundation, the organisation that launched the homonymous school that started out as an elementary school, but since has been functioning as a high school as well.

In 2016, he was a co-founder of Aquincum Technology Incubator, the main goal of which is to help start-ups develop into successful companies, ready for the challenging international markets as well as potential future investments.

Duda was one of the founders of Medipredict, a company launched in 2015 that provides complex disease prediction and prevention solutions for individuals, based on comprehensive examinations with the use of state-of-the-art diagnostic tools.

Duda has played an active role in the fight against pseudoscience and quackery in Hungary. He was one of the participants of the Hungarian actions on 5 February 2011 as part of the global "1023 Homeopathy - Nothing in it" campaign, when activist attempted to 'overdose' on homeopathic products. He is also one of the members of the Hungarian Skeptic Society, to which he served as vice president until June 2013.

Not long after that he got acquainted with American businessman, Paul Panitz and the two ended up as partners in the founding of the Hungarian branch of Copy General, a major provider of printing services all over the country for more than a decade. In the following years he took part in the launching and leading of several business ventures. In the meantime he also enrolled on a management course at The Open University where he graduated at the early 2000s, followed by a leadership course at the Singularity University, but he also took part in the "2016 Boston Edition of the European Entrepreneurship Colloquium", a joint programme of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Between 1996 and 1999 Duda was the CEO of a corporate finance accountancy company, LP Invest, and in 1999 he founded Solvo Biotechnology, which is his most successful business venture so far, as he has developed it into a company of international acclaim. From a small startup of 3 people it has grown into a firm that has 200 employees in Szeged and Budapest and is a market leader in research and development in the field of pharmaceutical membrane transport solutions. Solvo was acquired by Citoxlab, a French CRO in 2018, which was further acquired by Charles River Laboratories in 2019, with Ernő Duda remaining the CEO of the company he had created.

Ernő Duda jr. (born 27 August 1968) is a multiple award-winning Hungarian entrepreneur, a prominent figure of the country's innovation and startup ecosystem, with the introduction of several well known brands into Hungary linked to his name, including the local branch of Copy General and the largest online store of second hand books, Antikvarium.hu.

He was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1968 to molecular biologist Ernő Duda, and neurochemist Anna Borsodi. He graduated high school in 1986 at Miklós Radnóti High School, after which he initially intended to pursue a career in scientific research. He had wanted to study Biology, but ended up enrolling on a Chemistry course at the Attila József University (currently called University of Szeged), but after two years, he dropped out because of a personal conflict with a professor.