46 | EVENTS Photo: Mindaugas Mikulėnas
Honouring the best “21 years ago, Bill Gates said: “Banking is necessary. Banks are not.” It is the consequential policy that Lithuania took to improve and create a fostering environment for fintech startups, and this is exactly the reason why we chose the topic for this year’s award” said Florian Schröder, CEO of GermanBaltic Chamber of Commerce (AHK) at the German-Lithuanian Business Awards ceremony. As Schröder noted, the Fintech sector in Lithuania grew by 45 percent last year - there is no other sector in the economy which is growing as fast. And AHK wants to create a bridge between the Fintechs, the innovative technologies that are developed in the Baltics, and Germany.
The winner was selected at the awards ceremony at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius. After careful selection and considering several criteria, the international jury selected five finalists. The fintechs once again had time for a live presentation in the Final Pitch Contest, before the final decision was made. Of course, the votes of the international jury as well as the online voting and the live voting of the guests on site were taken into account.
Most points received Ondato - a comprehensive information system about the customer (KYC - Know Your Customer) and the company (KYB - Know Your Business), based on the analysis of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.
Furthermore, AHK honoured the Exporter of the Year and the AHK Member of the Year in Lithuania. Yazaki Wiring Technologies Lietuva UAB received the title Exporter of the Year 2019. Our member of the year 2019 is Layher Baltic UAB.
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Fostering Baltic-German business relations “We are standing as a membership organisation, here to foster and grow Baltic-German business relations. Of course, I’m not doing it – you are doing it. You are German-Baltic business relations!” emphasised Florian Schröder, CEO of the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce (AHK) at the German-Latvian Business Awards ceremony.
This year one of the most prominent recognitions in the economy of the Baltic states was awarded to the most innovative local fintech. And the winner was Mobilly TX - an innovative GovTech company providing an advanced solution that allows state and local institutions to offer citizens indirect social benefits.
The title Exporter of the Year 2019 in Latvia was awarded to Laflora. Based on the statistics, we have assessed a number of manufacturing companies with a total turnover of more than EUR 1 million, based on the relative increase in their export to Germany from 2017 to 2018. The peat producer Laflora was able to convince, and therefore received the title Exporter of the Year. Laflora received a nutcracker as an award. The popular Christmas decoration from Germany serves as a symbol that the export company has “cracked” the German market.
Member of the year 2019 is AKG Thermotechnik Lettland. As the regional president of AHK in Latvia Kaspars Kalviškis emphasised, AKG is also a successful example of German investment that we would like to see more in Latvia. At the same time, AKG has long been a loyal member and partner of AHK.
50 | EVENTS Photo: Office of the President of the Republic of Estonia, Christian Kruppa
Generation of joint solutions Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid met in Berlin with the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. Their meeting focused on e-governance, digital cooperation and recent developments in Ukraine. “Estonia’s experience in building up an e-state and the implementation of e-governance is still a factor of interest both in Europe and beyond. Our e-state extends beyond what our geographic or economic indicators would allow,” said President Kaljulaid after the meeting. She emphasised that for the purposes of the generation of joint solutions and achieving wide-based applications, both the creation of a promising legal space and cooperation between the public and private sector are important. Kaljulaid also emphasised the need to offer people secure knowledge that their data will be better protected in an e-state than in the paper world. The president was also one of the keynote speakers at the “Day of German Industry” conference in Berlin, organised by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
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52 | EVENTS Photo: Mindaugas Mikulėnas
Expectations for the 4th Industrial Revolution Industry 4.0 is no longer just a buzzword! The conference “Making Industry 4.0 Real”, organised by the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce (AHK), the Lithuanian Mechanical Engineering Association LINPRA and the Association for Information and Communication Technologies INFOBALT, attracted 400 participants to Kaunas.
Why are we investing in a particular technology? This was the big question from Lennart Hammerström, Director of Operations of HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA, as the keynote speaker of the conference. “Because our growth model could be threatened, our profitability could diminish in the medium and long term, and our ability to differentiate ourselves from competitors would be destroyed” he answered. According to Hammerström, expectations for the 4th Industrial Revolution from 2000 to 2050 are quite remarkable: rationalisation - 18%, increase in productivity - 12-30%, reduction in non-quality costs of 0.5-8%, sales increase - 2-6% and new business models.
The number of employees and companies in the Lithuanian mechanical engineering industry has increased dramatically in the last decade, as Tomas Jaskelevičius, President of the Lithuanian Association of Mechanical Engineering Industry LINPRA, points out. To meet the needs of the industry and to share the best business practices and experiences related to the digital transformation, the conference focused primarily on the practice.
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Photo: Mirjam Eerma
To Tallinn for impressions and investments The delegation from Saxony visited the Estonian capital to find out more about digitisation, mobility of the future and Smart City. Led by Martin Dulig, Minister of Economic Affairs of Saxony, the delegation included representatives of leading companies, universities and associations in Saxony. In Tallinn, the delegation visited companies and institutions that contributed to the digitisation of Estonia. The participants were given a comprehensive insight into the Estonian eGovernment system and the latest innovations in mobility and transport, for example, driverless city transportation vehicles.
Th delegation came from Saxony for more than just impressions. During the visit of the delegation the Estonian ultracapacitor manufacturer Skeleton Technologies and Martin Dulig announced investments of 25 million euros in the production facility in GroĂ&#x;rĂśhrsdorf near Dresden. The number of employees should also be increased tenfold - from 50 to 545 by 2022. Dulig thanked the Estonian company for their confidence in Saxony as a business location. Skeleton thus makes an important contribution to developing and future-proofing energy policy in Saxony in the long term, said the politician.