Тwining seminar on standards took place on 25 – 26 January 2018 at Grand Hotel Sofia, Bulgaria.

The seminar was organized by ICT Cluster Bulgaria, Small Business Standards (SBS) and. European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)

The seminar was part of a broader SBS campaign on trainings for SME associations and ICT clusters and was designed to provide SME associations’ and clusters’ staff with the possibility to upgrade their knowledge and understanding of the European standardisation system and, in particular, of the ETSI specifications.

The objective was to raise awareness among National Standardisation Organisations (NSOs) about the value of further including SMEs in standardisation and to share experiences on SME initiatives.

The event was attended by representatives and experts from SBS, ETSI, CEN, CENELEC, European Commission, French Standardization Association, representatives of universities, ICT clusters and ICT associations from Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Greece, Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo.

The exercise allowed participants to share and identify good practices in reaching out and involving SMEs in standardisation.

Presentation form the event could be find below:

Session 1: Setting the scene - The standardisation landscape in the Balkans
- Lubomir Stanislavov, CEO and Member of the Board of Directors, Automotive Cluster Bulgaria

Session 2: Standardisation in the European context
- Radek Maly, Head of Unit, DG for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Unit B.3 Standards for Growth, European Commission
- Ingrid Soetart, Project Manager – Stakeholder Engagement, CEN-CENELEC
- Xavier Piednoir, Head of External Relations at ETSI
- Christel Davidson, Director of SBS

Session 3: Tools for SMEs involvement in the standardisation - practiacl cases and exhchange of good pracices
- Jean-Loup Commo, French Standardization Association (AFNOR)
- Massimo Vanetti, IoT expert, appointed to oneM2M
- Emil Dimitrov, SBS experts, appointed to ETSI TC TCCE
- George Sharkov, SBS expert, appointed to ETSI TC CYBER

Session 4: Looking ahead
- Ingrid Soetart, Project Manager – Stakeholder Engagement, CEN-CENELEC
- Xavier Piednoir, Head of External Relations at ETSI