Participants from 10 organizations from 7 countries attended the CARPE DIGEM project kick-off meeting at L’INKUB (Digital Accelerator and Hub) in Nevers, France, on 24-25 September 2019 hosted by our Lead partner, the Digital Nievre. This first meeting served as a 'capacity building' event to prepare the partnership to set up, manage and monitor the processes at the core of our project.
The meeting began with each partner making a short presentation about their organization including their expectations and the added value they are bringing to CARPE DIGEM project. Further, a project overview revision including the main exchange of knowledge, management and communication and dissemination activities and responsibilities were discussed.
Each partner presented and reviewed the Partner Territorial DIGEMs (Digital innovation Ecosystems) together with the current social, economic innovation processes, methodologies, tools, policies and strategies and their ambitions and planned strategies to change them.
All partners have presented the preliminary selection of good practices related to the regional digital innovation systems in their countries. A discussion on peer reviews and wider project methodology and local-regional DIGEM processes was held.
Partners have been offered a very intensive program of visits, presentations and hands-on experience to the business, public and community initiatives, and projects held at Nevers and the region of Nievre.
At September 26 partners visited the most important regional digital event - SIVIIM (“The Summit of Innovation in Medium-Sized Cities ‘Reinventing the appeal of middle-sized cities through digital innovation and transformation”) at Nevers and met with participating businesses and public sector organizations, focused mainly at “My free open-source city” topic.
The next steps for CARPE DIGEM partners are good practices mapping and the establishment of the stakeholder groups formed by the relevant actors in each of the regions that will be engaged to actively participate in project activities seeking their support and contribution to the project’s success.
The local DIGEM needs and system optimisation analysis and first intra & Inter-regional vision for DIGEM's improvement will further be developed through the Peer review-Study visit to Slovenia at 25 – 26.11.2019. Partners will get acquainted with the Slovenian experience: national rural-centric networks and one-stop shops for digital prototyping and experimentation.
You will find some photos from our kick-off meeting in Nevers, here.
