Throwback: STARTUP3 Ecosystem Discovery Mission Latvia & Baltics

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Throwback: STARTUP3 Ecosystem Discovery Mission Latvia & Baltics

7th July 2020 pavlica

The STARTUP3 Ecosystem Discovery Mission Latvia & Baltics was organised by Latvian ICT Cluster in the form of a webinar on June 16th, bringing a wide range of professionals on the topics together. The aims for the webinar were to introduce the startup and cluster environment in the Baltic states, to share experience stories and the knowledge between speakers, participants, organizations and to give networking opportunities for the attendees.

This webinar was divided into 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.

As per participants, the webinar gave a broader understanding of the Baltic countries and their working structure. and that information will be useful for future business opportunities with people from the Baltics.

Edgars Ozoliņš-Ozols

Digitalisation Team Lead @ Latvian Ministry of Economics

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-savvy 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.

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.

Doris Põld

Cluster Manager @ Estonian ICT Cluster

I participated in this Discovery Mission as a Speaker from the 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 managers are always looking for new ideas and collaboration possibilities and this kind of 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.

This webinar reached approximately 70 participants from all around the world. Nevertheless, the participants were active in 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.

Aiga Irmeja

Executive Director @ Latvian IT Cluster

Right now it is extremely valuable to share ideas, knowledge and experience. This gives many new opportunities and partnerships in the future. As a Latvian IT Cluster executive director, I found the webinar as a great start for new events like this, where the international community can gather and do networking.