HGK County Chamber of Varaždin in the Network of European Digital Innovation Hubs

Digital transformation in the industry is a complex process that requires changes in all business areas and operational processes. Every company has its own customer experiences in this process, but digital transformation, especially for export companies, is today a necessity and a condition for long-term survival in the global market. 

Europe’s potential to specialize in digital solutions on a global level is not fully utilized, and the main obstacles to this are market fragmentation and the lack of unified regulations and procedures. In response to this, the EU offers a new initiative – Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) that supports the digitalization of industry.

DIHs are complex service centers where companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and startups, can improve their competencies in streamlining production processes, products, and services by applying digital technologies. DIHs act as local one-stop-shop systems for entrepreneurs, offering access to knowledge, expertise, and trends in digital transformation at the international level and the possibility of collaboration. 

Regional DIHs in Central Europe enhance their competencies through S3HubsinCE – a project for the exchange of experiences and best practices among project partners active in business, research, and science, as well as regional authorities. Partners from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Slovenia have joined forces to create a transnational support structure based on regional DIHs. HGK County Chamber of Varaždin is joining the Central European network of digital innovation hubs in collaboration with ICENT, the Nikola Tesla Innovation Center.

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The main goal of the project is to create working groups that form a transnational network of experts gathered around key technological priority areas relevant to all regions and to promote excellence in specific technological topics focused on the market through transnational exchange of DIH services.

Ten strategic working groups (Navigation Crews) are composed of experts and practitioners from the project partners’ teams and the partner ecosystem in ten selected priority technological areas to connect into a transnational network of innovative actors in digital transformation. The purpose of the network is to strengthen regional innovation ecosystems through knowledge exchange and joint planning of concrete activities according to a bottom-up approach. In the activities of the working groups, we want to involve as many experts as possible from our companies.

The priority technological areas in which we want to improve competitiveness and industrial efficiency are:

• Data analysis, Complex simulation and modeling
• Machine vision
• Predictive maintenance
• Factory and process automation
• Digital innovations in industry and mechanical engineering
• Advanced and smart materials
• Industrial Internet of Things
• Digital marketing
• Innovations in the circular economy
• Design and engineering in additive manufacturing

We will achieve collaboration with other European DIHs through a series of online seminars and round tables with top thematic experts and identify priorities for achieving long-term cooperation through generating future joint EU projects, including regional companies that want to revise and digitalize their business models and catch up with technological trends.   

The concept of activities of the HGK County Chamber of Varaždin is to locally connect all quality actors important for the process of digital transformation in companies, primarily to involve the academic community, and to establish itself as a center of digital excellence in a strong international network, thus opening the possibility for long-term work within open innovation communities where companies can exchange knowledge on innovative topics and develop skills around the main issues of advanced manufacturing.

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