The 15th Business, Government, Municipality and Diplomacy Executive Meeting on the Innovative Cross-border eRegions: Baltic, Central Europe, Nordic, Mediterranean, South East Europe Tuesday, June 17, 2008, Hotel Golf Concordia, 14:00 – 17:30
Previous Business & Government Executive Meetings
Cross-border eRegions Development Events and Activities
The 15th Executive Meeting's Outline
14:00 – 15:30
Cross-border eRegion Central Europe Inviting to the Inter-eRegions eCollaboration
Chair:
Otto Peperna, Head of Unit
International Innovation and Technology, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labour, Austria
Active participants:
Peter Volasko, Head
Service for International Co-operation and European Affairs, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Republic of Slovenia
Blaž Golob, Director
Centre for eGovernance Development (CeGD), Ljubljana, Slovenia
Jean-Pierre Euzen, Head of Sector for Living Labs
New Infrastructure Paradigms & Experimental Facilities, Directorate F: Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures, Information Society and Media Directorate-General, European Commission
Kypros Kyprianou, Programme Manager
RTD and ICT, South East Europe Team, Cross Border Cooperation Operational Programmes for Greece with Cyprus, Bulgaria, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania
European Commission, Regional Policy Directorate-General, European Territorial Cooperation/INTERREG Nordic-Baltic Network of LivingLabs - Collaboration for the Creation of a Joint Research Programme
Ulf Blomqvist, Head of Department
Department for Services and Applied IT, Swedish Governmental Agency for
Innovation Systems VINNOVA, Sweden Rimantas Gatautis, Professor & Director
Electronic Business Research Center, Economics and Management Faculty, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Álvaro Duarte de Oliveira, Managing Director
αμAlfamicro Lda, Research, Engineering and Consultancy - Technology Transfer Business Incubator, Portugal
& Vice-chair, Living Labs Portfolio Leadership Group, European Network of Living Labs – ENoLL, eRegion South Europe & Northern Africa, Americas
Jesse B.T. Marsh, Founder & Partner
Atelier Studio Associato, Palermo, Italy
Anton Lavrín, Associate Professor & Head
Office of the European Projects Technical University of Kosice, Slovak Republic
& IST National Contact Point, European Union
Guillermo Barrera Fierro, Principal
Supply Chain Flow Consultants LLC, Miami, Florida, United States
& CT-127, the Portuguese eCommerce Standards Committee, Portugal
Costas Andropoulos, Head
Unit for "ICT industries for competitiveness", Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry, European Commission ESF Co.net: European ESF Cooperation Network
Elio Ropelato, Member of Evaluation Unit - ESF Office
Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy
Additional active participants to be indicated. 16:00 – 17:30
Exploiting the Interoperability Opportunities for Cross-border Inter-eRegions Development
Chair:
Ivan Žerko, President
SRC.SI, Systems Integration, Slovenia Active participants:
Gerhard Laga, eCenter Manager
Department Strategies, The Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Austria
Claudio Di Giorgio, Head of Information Services & Innovation Department
INFORMEST – Service and Documentation Centre for International Economic Cooperation, Italy
Stanko Šalamon, Executive Director
The Slovenian ICT Network, Slovenia
Franc Bračun, Executive Director
Development Division, Abanka Vipa Ljubljana
& Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, Slovenia
Christian Kittl, Head, International Programs
evolaris Research Lab, Graz, Austria
& Teaching Assistant, Karl-Franzens University Graz
Andrej Mertelj, CEO
Datalab Ljubljana, Slovenia
Zoran Zorko, Founder
ZZI Ltd., Consulting and Engineering, Software Production and Sale, Slovenia
Wilfried Grommen, General Manager
Regional Technology Officer - Microsoft CEE
Additional active participants to be indicated. 19:00 Picnic Dinner sponsored by SRC.SI, Systems Integration, Slovenia
Departure by busses for Kunstelj Restaurant, Radovljica from the Hotel Golf
The Meeting’s Outline Development of the “e” is strategically important to all regions. As it is suggested by the ministerial declaration of the Gothenburg Conference "Towards a Knowledge Society - The Nordic Experience", the level of introduced telecommunication technologies and eSolutions available offers the possibilities of accelerated development and intensified links with cross-border neighbors. From the geographical point of view, it is the eRegion that we can understand as being a totality of organizations – linked by eTechnologies – of nearby countries in a circle of 200 to 500 kilometers surrounding the observation point.
The development of the e-region can be beneficial to all countries in the region. There are tangible examples of eCooperation of countries situated in a certain geographical area of the European Union aiming at increased competitiveness of each of the participating countries and the eRegion as a whole. In order for the eRegions to be contributing to the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, cooperation between research units, laboratories, companies and governmental organizations is indispensable.
Numerous business and government organizations in the countries of the eRegion Central Europe are considering eCommerce an important mechanism for processes efficiency & effectiveness improvement and trade facilitation. Since 2001, business and government executive meetings are sponsored in Slovenia twice a year in order to increase cooperation and accelerate a development of cross-border eCommerce in the eRegion. Meetings are investigating opportunities of, and interest in joint innovative business-government-academia cross-border research & development projects. In the cross-border environment, interoperability not only through technology but also in business processes and public services is an important precondition of eCollaboration where regulatory and deregulatory needs are identified.
An innovative cross-border eRegion of the neighboring countries may be an important area of observation, research, development, and action. Considering a nature of experimenting (prototyping, concepts proving) in an area of a fast environmental changes and technological opportunities, all parties involved have to work more closely together. Business, government, and academia representatives are continuously looking for the new ways of eCollaboration. They will be experimenting how to experiment in an accelerated mode and in a growingly complex environment. Living Labs in the eRegions may prove to be a convenient common open innovation focused working environment. Exploitation of the Living Labs for the eRegions development may be considered a model for creation of a desired, convenient, and beneficial environment for all involved.
In June 2008 for the first time, the representatives of emerging eRegions in Europe will meet, discuss and plan for joint actions: the eRegions Baltic, Central Europe, Nordic, Mediterranean, South East Europe. This is in a line with several events and activities in the EU. For example, innovative interoperability of the thematic Living Labs of the European Network of Living Labs – ENoLL.
The meeting’s objectives
- Motivating executives for e-technologies implementation and usage in a cross-border environment.
- Establishing contacts between business, informatics & logistics executives of participating organizations in the region.
- Creating a favorable climate for innovative cross-border business & government cooperation in eCommerce development in the region.
- Indicating existing and anticipated governments’ related problems of cross-border eCommerce and engaging with them in the problems solving processes.
- Providing open environment for business, government, and universities in the region to interact in identifying opportunities for innovative eCollaboration and joint projects.
- Learning from and sharing with other eRegions in the EU and globally.
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