ec
ec
It’s necessary to jointly think about how to tackle future scenarios, which include climate change, urbanisation, migration flows, social unrest or how to stay competitive in a global race for dominance in technology.
In March, the European Startup community gathered, this time in Romania, for the Startup Europe Summit, to exchange ideas, get updates on policy developments, give visibility to success stories and identify common challenges. This year the summit was hosted in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, highlighting, once more, how vital Central and Eastern Europe is as part of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The event was well above expectation. Not only the speaker line-up was top notch, but the engagement of the participants, the hosts and the startups, was outstanding. This year’s summit brought key startup people together, roughly 1100 attendees, 100 international speakers and over 22 side events that tackled topics ranging from Women in Tech to Startup Cities and urban resilience. While previous events have been significant, this year’s conference took a serious look at current issues. The challenges Europe is facing, as well as the role of startups within them, was central to the discussions. Smart use of technology is becoming key to the future stability of the region and issues such as use of robust ethical standards in design and inclusive collaboration between stakeholders in development are critical.
This success does not come out of the blue. It would be not be possible without the energy, ambition and creativity of our European “startupers”. But it is also the result of public policies at regional, national and European level, which aim at creating a favourable environment.
Alex Barrera, Editor in Chief at The Aleph Report, put together a report summarizing the key takeaways and policy recommendations.
Downloads
SES19-Report.pdf