The webinar “Discovery Mission: startup and cluster ecosystems in the Baltics” on June 16 was one of the “STARTUP3” project activities, bringing a wide range of professionals on the topics together. The aims for the webinar:
To introduce the startup and cluster environment in the Baltic states;
To share experience stories and the knowledge between speakers, participants, organizations;
To give networking opportunities for the attendees.
This webinar was divided in two sessions and started off with the startups. The startups in the Baltic countries are very similar and they are fast-paced businesses with a strong will to develop themselves even faster. The speakers from Latvia revealed the latest statistics about the startup ecosystem in Latvia – the growing speed of the ecosystem, collaboration opportunities, and other valuable statistics.
"Today, in the digital transformation corridor, we cannot look back to yesterday, but we need to focus and be able to anticipate future digital transformation scenarios. The “Discovery Mission: startup and cluster ecosystems in the Baltics” webinar managed to show the different perspectives of tackling the current challenges by both the public and private sector. Today start-ups and tech-savy people are at the front line of a country`s economic recovery, therefore, looking towards the future “Discovery Missions” the focus should remain on the start-up and talent matchmaking, with crucial and necessary public sector components from a business transformation perspective."
- Edgars Ozoliņš-Ozols, Ministry of Economics
“This webinar gave me a broader understanding about the Baltic countries and their working structure. This information will be useful for future business opportunities with people from the Baltics.”
- Participant from Korea
The second session was dedicated to clusters in the Baltics. The clusters are encouraging the cross-industry collaboration, therefore they are very interested in new partnerships and opportunities.
“I participated in this discovery mission as a Speaker from Estonian side. For me it was very interesting to hear other countries' experiences and cluster policy approaches. For me the main value of the event was the discussions about different cluster examples, policies - time for that could be even longer, because cluster mangers are always looking for new ideas and collaboration possibilities and these kind off events are excellent for that. During this event I started to think that maybe Baltic countries clusters should speak more about their cluster approaches and think about the ways for more harmonized policies which can help us to be more competitive in the wide world.”
- Doris Pold, Estonian ICT Cluster Manager
This webinar reached approximately 70 participants from all around the world. Nevertheless, the participants were active the whole webinar and wanted to share their experience. This was useful not only to strengthen the community, but also for raising awareness for different kinds of topics which could highlight the future webinars. The participants outline various benefits of such events, new ideas and collaboration opportunities to name a few. Asked to rate this webinar in a 5-star range, most of the survey members said it was somewhere between 4 and 5 stars.
“Right now it is extremely valuable to share ideas, knowledge and experience. This gives many new opportunities and partnerships in the future. As an Latvian IT Cluster executive director, I found the webinar as a great start for new events like this, where international community can gather and do networking.”
- Aiga Irmeja, Latvian IT Cluster Executive Director
PRESENTATIONS
Startup session:
Cluster session:
