Paola Gushterova started her exchange of experience in Greece as a young entrepreneur under the project Venture8 within the program “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs”.

Anna Naydenova – executive director of ICT Cluster took part in the European cluster matchmaking event. The event was organized by the European Cluster Collaboration Platform on 30th of November 2016 on the eve of the 2016 European Cluster Conference “Clusters 4_0”. The large-scale matchmaking event brought together more than 300 cluster policy makers and cluster managers from 114 cluster organizations, from 21 countries, which discussed the future of European cluster policies.
The fifth edition of the European Cluster Conference kicked off in the morning of 1st December 2016 gathering more than 300 attendees from all over Europe.  This year the conference was focused on Cluster 4.0 – Shaping Smart Industries and included high-level plenary speeches, panel discussions and interactive sessions where participants had the chance to share their experience and challenges. Anna Naydenova, Executive Director of Bulgarian ICT Cluster was a “hard talk” speaker at the panel session "Clusters facilitating new cross-sectoral value chains".
The European Cluster Conference and also attended by members of “Balkan and Black Sea ICT Clusters Network” – Krasimira Shindarova “Bulgarian cluster telecommunications”, Stelian Brad “Cluj IT Cluster”, Milan Solaja “Vojvodina ICT Cluster” and Peter Indovski “MACES”.
For more information about the European Cluster Conference 2016, speakers and presentations – http://clusterconference2016.eu/documentation.jsp
Video of the European Cluser Conference - https://vimeo.com/194036247

The European DIGITAL SME Alliance launched #DigitalSME4skills, a new ambitious campaign for digital skills. The alliance pledged that digital small and medium sized enterprises will train 5 000 ICT professionals by 2019.

Oliver Grün, DIGITAL SME president and software entrepreneur, presented the pledge at the launch of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition at the presence of Commissioner Oettinger, Vice President Ansip and the Belgian deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. The Coalition is a multi-stakeholder partnership promoted by the European Commission to tackle the lack of digital skills in Europe.

Digital SMEs that subscribe to the campaign #digitalSME4skills will offer work experience schemes, namely Apprenticeships, Traineeships and Internships, to train ICT professionals. The primary target group will be pupils, students and young practitioners. However, work experience schemes will be offered also to more disadvantaged population groups, such as unemployed, older and disabled people. The campaign aims to reach 5.000 ICT professionals by 2019.

“Europe has thousands of digital SMEs that are the real drivers of our digital economy. They are the key contributors to the digital transformation of European industry. We believe that skills are essential to the future of our sector and all other sectors that use digital technologies. Digital SMEs want to give their contribution for Europe to have more and better ICT professionals” said Oliver Grün when presenting the pledge.

Find out more about #DigitalSME4Skills campaign here.

Тодор Митов – представител на ИКТ Клъстер взе участие в националния форум „Библиотеките днес”. Двудневното събитието се състоя на 29-30 ноември 2016 г. и бе посетено от над 900 представители от цялата страна на библиотеки, читалища и организации заинтересувани от развитието на библиотеките в България.
През първият ден бяха посочени ключовите проблеми на българските библиотеки и читалища и бяха направени предложения за справянето с тях. Бяха представени успешни истории и практики както от страната така и от чужбина.
Вторият ден, форумът се проведе в различи зали и с различни теми на обсъждане. Пленарната сесия: „Технологиите в бъдещето на библиотеките” засегна темата за необходимостта от вкарването на нови технологии с цел да се задържи вниманието на поколенията върху библиотеките като място за на просветление и придобиване на нови умения.

ETSI, the European Telecommunication Standards Institute, nominated Vladimir Poulkov as new vice president.
ETSI members have elected Prof. Vladimir Poulkov as vice chairman of the ETSI general assembly representing the user members of ETSI. Prof. Poulkov was supported by DIGITAL SME, the first European association of the ICT sector focused on representing the interests of SMEs, and by Small Business Standards, the European association of small and medium-sized enterprises for standardisation.
Prof. Poulkov will serve as ETSI vice-chairman for the next two years until November 2018. He replaces Mr. Peter Statev, the outgoing vice-chairman, who concluded his mandate.

On November 4th 2016 regarding the European Day of the Entrepreneur at the building of European Commission was held the 12th annual forum for the promotion of the entrepreneurship in Bulgaria – “The European Day of the Entrepreneur 2016”.  At the forum Krasimira Shindarova – project manager at ICT Cluster presented the program Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, before young people interested in starting their own business.

On 25th of October 2016 in Belgrade, Serbia was held the first meeting of the partners of the GIVE Partnership. The event was facilitated by ICT NET. The main discussed topic was the upcoming call under the Horizon 2020 Programme, Cluster facilitated projects for new industrial value chain. The participants of the meeting took decision to prepare a project that should create strong long term partnership between ICT and Automotive industry. The meeting was atended by Automobile clusters from Bulgaria and Serbia as well as ICT Cluster Central Serbia. They signed the memorandum for Strategic cluster partnership and became members of GIVE Partnership.

The annual meeting of the Balkan and Black Sea ICT Clusters’ Network was held on 28 – 30 September 2016 in Budva, Montenegro. At the meeting were reviewed the achievements of the network for the past year and discussed its plans for the next. Three new ICT organizations were accepted as members of the network, two form Ukraine – “CBIT Ukraine” , “Odessa IT Cluster” and one Macedonian – “MACES”.
With the ending of the Romanian chairmanship it was agreed the Serbian clusters to take the next year chairmanship.

On September 19th - 20th 2016 in  Warsaw, was held the 4th Cluster Matchmaking Conference: Internationalisation the Strategic Way.

Representative of ICT Cluster - Mrs. Anna Naydenova, participated in the conference among the 250 participants representing 150 different clusters from 30 European countries met in Warsaw for the 4th Cluster Matchmaking Conference. The annual cluster-to-cluster matchmaking conference provides a forum for developing ideas for international collaboration. The participants found the keynotes and learnings from other clusters inspirational. Nevertheless, as with the previous three conferences, there was a general agreement that matchmaking is a very important part of the event.

EuroCloud Forum will bring to Bucharest over 900 top specialists from cloud industry. During the two days of the event, 5^th-6^th of September, they will discuss about the latest legal and technology tools, including about the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU-US Privacy Shield and what it all means for cloud providers. Wojcieck Wiewiorowski, Assistant European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) will discuss about data protection and privacy and their impact on economic growth and trade.

”2016 represents a key year for the growth of the European cloud industry. The legal regulations for the data protection and security in the digital space are getting set for the Big Data era and brings with it new responsibility and transparency rules for the digital solutions and cloud providers. We invite all the industry representatives to join the discussion, to discover how they can be up-to-day with the new regulations and how they can be one step ahead in the digital cloud revolution.” – declares Elena Zvarici, the president of EuroCloud Romania Association.

EuroCloud Europe: How will the new European General Data Protection Regulation help in the uptake of a Digital Single Market?

Wojciech Wiewiorowski: Privacy and data protection are clearly not barriers to economic growth and international trade, rather they enhance them. However, we know that trust is a necessary precondition for innovative products and services that rely on the processing of personal data. The EU’s aim to grow the digital single market will be successful but only if the interests of the individual are protected. GDPR is a new deal for citizens´ rights, and can galvanise responsible businesses and public authorities.

We at EDPS consider that the EU needed a new deal on data protection, a fresh chapter, focusing less on excessive formalities or prescriptive detail and investing more on dynamic safeguards to allow the individual to be in control of their data in the big data world we inhabit. Guidelines and best practices from reinforced and truly independent data protection authorities should help to deal with the rapid evolution of technology.

EuroCloud Europe: There is a 2-year implementation deadline for the GDPR. How can cloud providers get up to speed in this period with the new regulation in order to comply?

Wojciech Wiewiorowski: The GDPR brings with it a quantum shift in emphasis on who is responsible for ensuring that our right to data protection is fully respected. The GDPR includes an explicit reference to accountability as a principle and requires appropriate technical and organisational measures be put in place by organisations. In other words, organisations and not Data Protection Authorities or Data Protection Officers must demonstrate that they are compliant.

Accountability is more than simple compliance with the rules – it implies a culture change. Accountability means promoting sustainable data processing, by ensuring that the task of assessing the legality and fairness of complex processing falls primarily on organisations, with the guidance of regulators, and not on the individual.

EuroCloud Europe: Starting August 1st we have a new framework agreement regulating transatlantic data flows, the EU-US Privacy Shield. How will this agreement help?

Wojciech Wiewiorowski: Data protection authorities in Europe have welcomed the improvements brought by the Privacy Shield mechanism compared to the previous Safe Harbour. However, a number of concerns remain regarding both the commercial aspects and the access by U.S. public authorities to data transferred from the EU.

The first joint annual review will therefore be a key moment for the robustness and efficiency of the Privacy Shield mechanism to be further assessed. In particular, elements allowing a proper evaluation of the necessity and proportionality of the collection and access to data transferred by public authorities will have to be reviewed. Also, we will have to check whether the safeguards provided under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield are workable and effective in practice.

If you want to hear more from Wojciech Wiewiorowski and about the implications of the new regulation on data protection and privacy, join us at the 2016 EuroCloud Forum from 5-6 October, in Bucharest. You can register online on the event page: http://forum.eurocloud.org.

De asemenea, EuroCloud Forum este colocat cu Internet&Mobile World, cea mai mare expo-conferință de soluții IT și digital pentru mediul de business din Europa Centrală și de Est. Evenimentul va avea loc pe 5-6 octombrie, la Romexpo, reunind peste 8,000 de vizitatori business și peste 130 de expozanți de soluții tehnologice pentru afaceri. Accesul la Internet&Mobile World se poate face pe baza biletului pentru EuroCloud Forum sau prin rezervarea în prelabil pe site-ul http://www.imworld.ro.

Sponsors: Veeam, Fabasoft, SAP, Star Storage, Microsoft.

Partner Associations:  ARIES, Asociația IT, BCCBR - Camera de Comerţ Bilaterală Bulgaria – România, CCIFER - Camera de Comerț Franceză, CIO Council România, DCIA, ICT Cluster Bulgaria, NRCC, Poland Connection.

Media Partners: Agora, Business24, Ibusiness.com, IT Channel, IT Trends, New Edition News, Tech Cafe, Ziare.com.

Contact:
Gabriela Deleanu
gabriela.deleanu@universum.ro
0733.062.593

On September 5th 2016 ICT Cluster join the European cluster family awarded with the European Cluster Management Excellence label in Bronze.

Katherina Hristova – young entrepreneur, approved by ICT Cluster, started her exchange of experience under the project Venture8 within the program “Erasmus for young entrepreneurs”.