What can MV learn from large cities’ success stories in digitalisation?
What exactly makes metropoles digitally more attractive than our next-to-metropolitan areas? What can we learn from those capitals of success? We went to Warsaw, Poland’s enormously developing capital, to find the secret to their quickly rising attractiveness.
In Next2Met our region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV) is looking for inspiration and success stories to become more attractive for workforce, so they won’t leave beautiful MV to nearby metropoles such as Berlin or Hamburg. Digitalisation holds a high potential for rural MV to connect the benefits of globalisation with beautiful landscapes, fresh air and the beaches of the Baltic Sea. But what makes the large cities attractive to people, why are the metropoles still becoming always more attractive for workforce?
The project BLUES, funded by the European COSME-Programme, invited the Next2Met-Project-Manager in WITENO to take part in an exchange in Warsaw, invited by the IT-Cluster of the Mazovia region, Poland. The IT-Cluster is an association connecting players of digitalisation, such as IT-companies, research institutions and associations. Going to Warsaw, we were able to meet many of those important players in digitalisation, learning about their stories and successes.
We visited research institutions such as The Centre for Scientific Geospatial Analyses and Satellite Computations in the Technical University of Warsaw, or the Systems Research Institute working on geo-information systems (GIS). Some of the institutions’ staff shared the Next2Met-story, migrating from rural Podlaskie region to Warsaw for professional success.
Next to the research institutions we exchanged with IT-companies, members of the Mazovian IT-Cluster, such as SEEDiA, working on smart city solar solutions such as smart benches. The regional incubator Accelpoint is connecting important players in the digital field so companies can quickly find the right organizations to implement their ideas.
After the exchange in Warsaw we met with the Westpomeranian IT-Cluster and their IT-companies in Szczecin, Poland, discussing possibilities and opportunities of digitalization in healthcare, along with the Chief Digital Officer of our University Medicine of Greifswald.
All the Mazovian and Westpomeranian IT-companies were highly innovative and inspiring – so what can they teach us for our Next2Met-regions?
One of the success factors is the constant availability of experts and exchange among important players, driven by needs and challenges to be solved. The research institutions’ staff expressed their need to move to the capital as they could not see the same level of professional chances in Podlaskie region due to the higher level of conducted research in Poland’s capital. The companies are profiting from the constant exchange and the availability of highly qualified staff.
Therefore, in Next2Met-regions we need to learn to connect our important players in a much better way than we have done so far, to drive inspiration and innovation in our regions. The IT-Cluster has given us a very good example of such organised clustering of institutions, engaging them and driving exchange of knowledge and experience.
A further cooperation with the IT-Clusters of Mazovia and Western Pomerania can help us to experience the needs and reflections of such organized clustering. Engaging and clustering players in digitalisation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, we can profit from the metropoles’ experiences and drive inspiration and innovation in our rural regions, making them more attractive and full of professional chances for highly qualified workforce.