DIGINNO was co-organiser of the 11th CMI Annual Conference 29-30 Nov 2018 hosted by CMI (Center for Communication, Media and IT) at Aalborg University Copenhagen.
The conference with 83 participants from 10 countries was opened with a keynote from Lithuania’s Vice Minister of Economy, Elijus Čivilis. He also joined the DIGINNO panel where the discussion was concluded by Edmunds Beļskis, Deputy State Secretary, Latvia. In eight sessions, international representatives of academia, business and politics presented and discussed prospects and challenges towards digitization initiatives within the EU in policy, technology, infrastructure and market contexts.
Two of the panel sessions had close links to the DIGINNO project. Session “Bridging the gaps” discussed how transnational collaboration projects in digitalization can give added value for business, politics and research. Among key messages were that projects like DIGINNO can build the trust between countries that is necessary for taking cross-border interaction to the next level, e.g. joint e-solutions and coordinated policy initiatives. The “RTE session” concluded a.o. that RTE can provide a regional platform and institutional framework for setting common standards that are adapted to (and linking) the different business cultures in neighboring countries.
Directly inspired by the DIGINNO project, CMI also organized an exclusive business seminar on “Digitalisation in Denmark and Lithuania” on 29 Nov. Participants were Vice Minister Čivilis, Ambassador Gintė Damusis and other prominent business and policy representatives from the two countries as well as the Latvian embassy.
DIGINNO partners were represented in the conference panels by: Edmunds Beļskis, Deputy State Secretary, Latvia; Paulius Vertelka, CEO of Infobalt, Lithuania; Rūta Šatrovaitė, Head of cross-border e-services, Infobalt, Lithuania; Reijo Tuokko, International Manager, DIMECC Finland; Olli-Pekka Rissanen, Special Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Finland; Sirli Heinsoo, Project Manager, ITL Estonia; Maria Volanen, Head of Taxation Policy, Technology Industries of Finland; Knud Erik Skouby, Professor, AAU/CMI and Torben Aaberg, Interregional Programme Manager, AAU/CMI.