On 29-30 May, the EU4Digital Facility organised a workshop of the EU4Digital ICT Innovation Network in Baku, Azerbaijan to discuss the status of ICT innovation in the six partner countries, and priorities moving forward. 

The main goal of the event was to present the specific work to be done by the EU4Digital Facility’s ICT Innovation stream, as well as the state of play and priorities in the Eastern Partner countries, and the suggested cooperation mechanism and alignment between the EU4Digital Facility and the Thematic Network.

The first day of the ICT Innovation Network workshop was dedicated to:

• Overview of the state of ICT Innovation in Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova.
• ICT Innovation activities and their correlation with the EU4Digital Network Action Plan.
• Specific work to be done for each of the five activities of the ICT Innovation team:
  • Set in place a common legislative framework in the EaP region.
  • Develop a common training package.
  • Promote networking of innovation ecosystem players within the EaP region.
  • Extend Start-up Europe networks and platforms to include the 6 partners.
  • Implement promotion campaigns in the partner countries.
• Suggested mechanism of cooperation and alignment between EU4Digital Facility and Thematic Network
• ICT Innovation in the EaP Countries: current status, goals, scope of work, Action Plan.

The second day was dedicated to:

• European Commission’s sharing of best practices to enable digital innovations and the scale-up of start-ups.
• The needs of start-ups and entrepreneurs engaging with digital innovation.
• ICT Innovation success stories from Azerbaijan.