The Digital Assembly 2015 in Riga featured plenary sessions with keynote speeches and inspirational speeches delivered by successfulentrepreneurs, 7 workshops, side events and networking opportunities.
The following workshops were organized and main outcomes were:
Opening workshop - Digital Skills for a Digital Single Market
Main outcomes:
a) Motivate people to engage in digital lifelong learning
b) Motivate businesses to train people
c) Strengthen digital skills partnerships (businesses, education, government, NGOs)
d) Fundamentally enhance digital skills teaching, learning and assessment
Workshop 1 - Building Trust and Confidence online
a) Creating the right conditions for digital networks and services to flourish
b) Legislative proposals to reform the current telecom rules
c) The NIS Directive needs to be implemented as soon as possible to ensure a sufficient level of national capacities and harmonisation of requirements across the EU. Fragmentation will hinder the growth of cross-border business.
d) Establishment of a Cybersecurity contractual PPP
e) Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility and cooperation and partnerships between public and private sector should be enhanced, including in research and innovation. This is why the proposed contractual public-private partnership is a welcome step in the right direction.
f) Maximising the growth potential of the Digital Economy
g) Initiatives on data ownership, free flow of data (e.g. between cloud providers) and on a European Cloud
h) Cloud computing needs to be trustworthy and requires legal certainty:
i) Definition of the responsibility of cloud providers: infrastructure provider or responsibility for security of content stored in the cloud? This definition is vital to determine whether cloud providers should be covered by the NIS Directive. Definition of the jurisdiction whose laws apply if data in the cloud is moved across borders, e.g. with regard to data protection.
j) Regulation of the use of cloud for critical infrastructure, such as banking, health or public administration.
Workshop 2 - A Digital Single Market for creative content
Main outcomes:
a) You CAN compete with free: deploy attractive services to beat piracy.
b) Defining territoriality by cultural affiliation not physical presence could allow consumer cross-border access to co-exist with the prevailing business models.
c) You cannot compare creative content to mass products.
d) Users should have freedom to transform content; accompanied by revenue sharing with original creators for viral transformations.
Workshop 3 - A connected Digital Single Market
Main outcomes:
a) On the Telecom review: need for a flexible and fast response to the market and new commercial business models;
b) On connectivity needs: need for policy actions, e.g. Telecom framework, spectrum harmonisation, promotion of cooperation;
c) On investment needs: need to promote effective infrastructure competition.
Workshop 4 - A Digital Single Market for businesses and consumers
Main outcomes:
a) Both panels were supportive of the consumer specific measures within the DSM Strategy.
b) Nevertheless, it was stated that a harmonization of consumer rules in the EU should not lead to a loss of rights for certain consumers (not a 'race to the bottom').
c) The panellists representing the business perspective mentioned on several occasions the need to swiftly reduce VAT related burdens, as this causes significant issues for small companies.
d) Participants in the business panel called for regulating the role of platforms in the online world, as well as identifying the right definition of online platforms in order to get the best results.
Workshop 5 - Promoting e-society
Main outcomes:
a) Public services in Europe have embraced new technologies to varying degrees but more can be done to modernise public administration, achieve cross-border interoperability and facilitate easy interaction with citizens. The new eGovernment Action Plan – foreseen by the DSM – will continue to advance the agenda of public sector modernisation across the EU.
b) The intervention of the panellists has pointed to some urging user expectations, resulting in an initial list of possible digital rights, which was further expanded during the discussion with the audience.
c) The complete list included 24 different rights, with a great emphasis on those related to user-friendly public services: digital – including the ability to receive and submit documents electronically and eventually through one-stop-shops - intuitive, inclusive, accessible, fast, efficient and multilingual, as well as automated services or at least reducing the number of interactions with public administrations, for example through the 'once-only' principle. Some of the rights were reflecting on how to modernise public administration, such as making them open, transparent, collaborative allowing for citizen involvement and eDemocracy. Another set of rights were related to facilitating mobility within the single market, ensuring that data and digital services can seamlessly move across borders and the right to do business anywhere in the EU. Another group of rights pointed to some basic pre-conditions that would facilitate all this to realise; such as privacy / confidentiality, the right to exist digitally, to control access to personal data, security, access to cheap and fast network, digital literacy and the quality of and access to machine readable data.
d) The audience and the panellists were then asked to indicate their 3 preferred choices from the list, using a voting machine. The result is a list of the top 10 rights, with the 'once only principle', 'user friendly / intuitive public services' and 'digital literacy' on the top.
e) The outcome of this session could serve as guidance for governments to pursue the transformation of public administrations and will help the Commission to elaborate the Action Plan taking into account the most urging expectations of citizens and businesses. It may in future also evolve towards a charter of digital rights.
Workshop 6 - Digitising European Industry and Enterprises
Main outcomes:
a) Harmonize rules/standards around data access, use and ownership
b) Data protection rules should build trust but be flexible enough to support data driven business models and the ability to provide the best consumer experience.
c) Support industry driven standardization.
d) ”Learning from your children” – you must be open to seeing things differently.
e) Collaborate with companies, especially SMEs.
