M4EG Signatories aim at harnessing the IT sector to promote local

21 November 2019

On 21-22 November 2019, a thematic networking event on supporting IT sector at the local level took place in Minsk and Vitebsk (Belarus), gathering together around 20 participants from the Eastern Partnership region. The event was organized by the Mayor for Economic Growth (M4EG) Secretariat for its signatories.

The objective of the event was to exchange experience of local authorities and other key stakeholders in supporting IT sector development at the local level in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as to study the existing experience in creating IT clusters at the national and regional levels.

The schedule of the event included an interactive workshop with presentations from the participants, as well as visits to the key IT ecosystem development actors in Belarus (including the High Technology Park, its IT Academy, a Start-up Hub IMAGURU). In addition, the participants got familiarized with the findings of a new M4EG Market research of the IT sector in the Eastern Partnership countries, and received some recommendations from the author.

The second day of the event was entirely dedicated to exploring support measures taken at the subnational level, and, in particular, the experience of forming an IT cluster in the Vitebsk region of Belarus. The participants got acquainted with the respective roles of the private sector, higher education institutions, and regional authorities in the process.

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