In February 2019, the Vodafone Institute gathered high-ranking representatives from politics, business and science at the Digitising Europe Summit in Berlin to discuss “The Future of Made in Europe”. Among them Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel, DGB Chairman Reiner Hoffmann, Philippe Donnet (CEO Generali), the President of the European Youth Forum, Carina Autengruber, educational researcher Andreas Schleicher (OECD), Dr Margarete Schramböck (formerly Austria’s Minister for Digitisation and Business Location) as well as European founders of technology start-ups.
In the debate, three success factors for the successful digitisation of business and society in Europe emerged:
- the need for partnership between governments and the private sector, to shape the opportunities and challenges of digitisation
- the creation of innovation-friendly political and economic framework conditions
- a digital education and skills campaign for all European citizens
Numerous speakers at the Digitising Europe Summit have agreed to present their views in the publication “Digitising Europe: Visions and Perspectives for a Digital Society”. Their contributions reflect the diversity of the challenges of digitisation: the need to invest in digital infrastructures to an unprecedented extent and at an unprecedented speed, to develop functioning digital ecosystems, to train for as yet unknown professions and to guarantee data protection and data security at the highest level.