Matchmaking event COM3

Welcome to matchmaking events within the NSR-project COM3: Building competencies for competitive companies.

Take the opportunity to listen to success stories, meet and talk to interesting speakers and widen your network and perspectives! This is the first part of a series of 3 matchmaking sessions. You can choose to participate on a single event, or multiple.

Session 1: How to build a tech community

Speakers

Micha Björck is the project leader for the Interreg-project Futures by Design. She has initiated Halland Tech Week, a regional event that focuses on tech/IT/technology for SMEs in the region of Halland. She will share her insights and experiences when creating a regional event, focusing on both the keys to success and the pitfalls to avoid.

Christine Björklund is a copywriter and journalist who has, on behalf of the Alexanderson Institute, written a report that maps out the foundations to establishing the municipality Varberg as a IT-cluster – a Mecha of Tech! She has interviewed researchers, SMEs, regional and local actor to find the secret sauce to successfully build a community.

Session 2: How can we grow and innovate with open data?

When? November 8th, at 02:00-03:00 PM CET

Speakers

Matthijs Bookelmann (JADS Mkb datalab) joined the JADS SME Datalab at the end of 2018 and he speaks daily to a wide range of entreprenuers and SMEs about the challenges they are facing, what their ambitions are and how they can work on those by applying data techniques. Matthijs will talk about data and how JADS, with students, helps SMEs go from a blank document to a data project proposal within an hour.

Kris Dekeyzer (Intercommunale Leiedal) support SME’s and organizations to use design thinking as a no nonsense method to reach their most ambitious goals. Kris is applying and activating the design process and guides companies in taking the right steps in terms of approach and collaborations. Together with SMEs in the different sectors, intermediary organizations and municipalities he has helped them to collaborate around data and the possibilities that lies within it.

Niels Annema (Province of Drenthe) is a data analyst and the project leader for COM3 in the province of Drenthe. They have set up a SME database that connected a variety of useful datasets in the region. Such an initiative does come with a wide range of technical and legal questions that they had to answer in their pilot project. Niels will share his experiences with these questions and elaborate on the solutions and end results.

Session 3: Regenerative tourism

When? January 26th, at 02:00–03:00 PM CET.

Key note speaker

Kristof Tomej, PhD (University of Southern Denmark SDU), is assistant professor at the Centre for Tourism, Innovation and Culture. His research expertise is on sustainable tourism development as well as accessibility and inclusivity in tourism. Together with colleagues, he works on ensuring and fostering the long-term inclusion of tourism’s contributions to sustainable development, not least through regenerative principles. Kristof will introduce the concept of regenerative tourism with illustrations of practical examples in Denmark and will discuss potentialities of the tourism sector for sustainable development across sectors.

Panelists

• Kim Worrmann Jensen, Project Coordinator Sustainability & Product Development at Destination Trekantområdet
• Hasse Bonde-Sterup, Hotel Manager at Haraldskær Sinatur Hotel & Konference
• Kristjan Fannar, business developer with a focus on the hospitality industry at Destination Falkenberg

Short summaries of the sessions

• Session 1: How to build a tech community (summary)
• Session 2: How can we grow and innovate with open data? (summary)
• Session 3: Regenerative tourism (summary)

More information

Read more about the COM³ project at northsearegion.eu/com-3.

For inspiration and training materials visit our website ruraldigital.eu.

Contact person

Do you have any further questions about the event? Please contact our event manager, Ida Thomsson at ida.thomsson@varberg.se.

Building Competencies for Competitive Companies (COM3) is a project at the Alexanderson Institute and is financed by Interreg North Sea Region (NSR). COM3 focuses on local and regional authorities and develops transnational supporting structures being tested in 11 NSR countries with the aim of introducing technology and economic interoperability for enterprises.