14/10/2022 – The fourth annual Smart Export Forum conference, which took place this year as part of the International Engineering Fair at the Regional Economic Chamber in Brno, focused on strengthening business cooperation in the field of digital innovation between the Czech Republic and Ukraine. Current and newly outlined joint projects were also supported by the Memorandum on Czech-Ukrainian cooperation in the field of digital innovations.
“It was a great pleasure for us to welcome to our conference twenty members of the Ukrainian business delegation led by the chairman of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance Alexander Yurchak. We are already running several joint projects and we agreed on others on the spot. Mutual trade missions should increase in intensity from next year, we defined priority topics for cooperation and submitted further joint proposals immediately after the conference. There were immediate responses from the Czech and Ukrainian sides to the presented requests for cooperation,” said Tereza Šamanová, CEO of the CzechInno association.
In the conference program, in addition to representatives of the government, represented mainly by Petr Očko, deputy for digitization and innovation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, Jaroslav Kurfürst, deputy for management of the European section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic or representatives of the CzechTrade agency, representatives of trade and business support organizations also presented themselves from the Czech and Ukrainian sides. Four core topics were discussed: cyber security, smart industry known as Industry 4.0, strategies and solutions for smart cities and smart regions, and the field of education and support for small and medium-sized companies.
Although Ukraine is now a country in a state of war, the government and business representatives present agreed that, with the support of already ongoing and newly planned projects, there is a need to prepare for post-war reconstruction and keep up with digital development trends in the rest of Europe. The signing of the Memorandum on Czech-Ukrainian cooperation in the field of digital innovations confirmed the scope for deepening mutual cooperation between Czech and Ukrainian partners. This year’s Czech-Ukrainian Smart Export Forum can be considered a very successful event, which will soon benefit from other Czech-Ukrainian projects.
The Smart Export Forum takes place every year as part of the long-term Smart Export Hub project, in which the CzechInno association and its partners help, through various activities, the successful internationalization of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises and the establishment of new international partnerships.
If you are interested in further information and outputs from this event, you can contact us: Tereza Šamanová, CEO of the CzechInno association, samanova@czechinno.vcz