On October 10, AmCham in cooperation with the European Commission Representation in Estonia, held an event with over 200 participants on the topic of “Digital Single Market – What is there for Estonia?”
The main focus point of the seminar was the importance of the European Digital Single Market for Estonian and overall European businesses. Andrus Ansip, the Vice President of the Digital Single Market in European Commission, gave an overview of the impact of digitalization on the people, local businesses and the overall regional development.
“People in Europe have clear advantages from using a single market for products and services. Now we must act to make sure that further digitalization will not create any new barriers between the EU member states. United Digital Sigle Market in Europe would mean better and more diverse products and services for millions of people ning economical growth worth of billions of euros!“- stated VP Ansip during the event.
Andrus Ansip`s presentation was followed by a business panel discussion on that topic with the following panelists: David Mothander from Google, Damir Tomicic from Axinom, Jacob Turowski from Facebook and Dan Strömberg from Telia. The panel was moderated by Wade Stokes, Head of Operations of Transferwise.
“Europe’s digital leader countries must make faster and broader digitization a top priority and provide strong European leadership at the highest political level to guide cooperation across nations to secure future growth and employment.” – said, David Mothander from Google.
Jacob Turowski has also commented: “I see the Digital Single Market as a huge potential for the whole CEE region in regards to the digitalization. Estonia is a fantastic positive example but in general businesses from the region do not use digital solutions as much as they could. There is still a lot of potential in digital growth, which make digital solutions a potential leverage of sustainable growth. To use this potential, several things are needed such as predictable and innovation driven regulations and better digital inclusion/education of the local businesses.”
Damir Tomicic, CEO of Axinom provided his perspective from the SME side: “Digitalization has been changing the Estonian, European, and global economy and this process will continue across all sectors of the economy and society, from health to energy to intelligent transport systems to smart cities, and beyond. Digital technologies leverage scalability across borders and businesses. The seamless flow of data between economies and across political borders is essential to the functioning of the global economy. The scale envisioned by the DSM is important for the deployment of high-speed infrastructure to enable advanced digital services and the development and adoption of new technologies in Europe, such as the Internet of Things, big data analytics or cloud computing. While the DSM benefits European businesses by facilitating business across the EU through e-Commerce, it should also bring European businesses into the global digital market.”
Dan Strömberg, CEO of Telia Estonia has also confirmed the necessity of DSM for future growth and development: “We believe digitalization to be the most important driver of the success of our region in the coming decade and more. Estonian economy needs productivity boost and further digitalization will be one of the key tools to achieve that. To meet the ambitions of DSM strategy and, even more importantly, the growing needs and expectations by our customers, the prerequisite is to secure fast and seamless connectivity. I´m happy to say that Telia is working hard on the 5G project to be launched in Estonia and in Sweden already in 2018”, stated Dan.
We would like to thank everyone for their participation! Our special thank you goes to Radisson Blu Sky Hotel team for their support and flexibility! And of course we would like to express our sincerest gratitude to the European Commission Representation in Estonia for their contribution in helping us in organizing this outstanding event!
Photos by Sergei Krasii, Fotki Inc. for AmCham Estonia (c)
