In autumn 2019 a selection of Austrian stakeholders related to the topic of digitalization were informed about the participation of Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws) as a project partner in the DigiBEST project and were invited to be part of the first Local Stakeholder Group Meeting on 22nd January in the premises of aws.
In total 16 stakeholders from numerous relevant Austrian organizations such as the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, the Digitalization Agency, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, the Platform Industry 4.0, representatives of regional agencies and representatives from several Austrian universities have attended the Stakeholder Group Meeting.
This first DigiBEST Stakeholder Group Meeting was used mainly to introduce this new EU-project to the participants, to make them aware of the project tasks of the next months as well as the overall objectives of the project. The participants were also informed about what activities took place in the first DigiBEST Study Visit in Penafiel/Portugal directly by one of the participating Stakeholders in Portugal Norbert Kailer (Johannes Kepler University Linz). Subsequently, the possibility of participating in one of the next Study Visits in Granada and Matera was presented, with very high interest of the participating stakeholders.
It was a vivid 3-hour discussion about the DigiBEST project, about how to support the digitalization of SMEs especially in rural areas in Austria and about how to use the project to reach that very goal. At the end of the day it was agreed amongst all participants that the stakeholders would like to continue meeting in this format in the upcoming years.
