🥳1st Anniversary of the League
On behalf of the consortium of partners of the League for Digital Boost, a CEE initiative founded by us at the Slovak Alliance for Innovation Economy, we had the pleasure to host dozens of policymakers and stakeholders on Monday, 28th November in Prague to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the League for Digital Boost.
A year ago, we decided to focus on supporting SMEs digitalization because of 4 key reasons:
feedback from SME: SMEs are lacking information about benefits and value added of digitalization, financial opportunities, information about potential partners, digital processes and its key components, what the road map should look like or how to set up a digital strategy or identify skillset needed.
key priority for the European Commission: Digitalization of SME is one of the key priorities for the European Commission which also clearly set up ambitious goals towards 2030. One partial goal is that more than 90% of SMEs reach at least a basic level of digital intensity by 2030. When we look at DESI 2022 Index, the EU average is 55%, and as for the Leagues’ focused countries we can mention Czech Republic having 53%, Slovakia 43%, Poland 40% and Hungary 34%.
National Recovery and Resilience Plans: we have this momentum of NRRP as the core element of the EU’s largest and most innovative financing instrument
Lacking CEE voice in Brussels
Our main goals are to support the digitalization of SMEs in the CEE region, constantly gather feedback from SMEs and provide platforms for ideas exchange – including the governments, business, NGOs, academia; share best practices of the region. There are a number of countries in the CEE area, particular countries are trying different things and different strategies and if something is working in one country, we could look at if it could work in other countries as well.
By supporting digitalization, we can support the SMEs competitiveness, help them to become more sustainable on the market, work effectively in terms of employers, finances, or at the end to save time, money and even to help them grow.
The vision of the League for Digital Boost is to create a broad coalition of the key actors in the field of digital economy and to launch and drive a sustainable format of a long-term cooperation in the implementation of digital transformation of SMEs and we invite you to join this endeavor.
As for our next plans, we will continue to build up broad coalition of partners in the CEE region, share best practices, provide platforms for exchange of ideas, know-how and solutions; connect the market demand with the policymaking process; be more visible in Brussels and strengthen our presence at the events in the European Parliament and the European Commission, or collaborate with the European Digital Innovation Hubs and more.
