To meet some of tomorrow’s challenges, the Nordic Ministers of Business and Innovation set the ambitious goal of developing the Nordics into a pioneering region for new and innovative digital solutions.
The Nordic region is strong in the digital area. The countries have good infrastructure, sound public data and a high level of trust in the public sector. The Nordics are always ranked top in innovation and the countries have an extremely talented pool of entrepreneurs. But a pioneer does not settle for status quo, she explores.
In this lighthouse project that ran from 2014-2017, Nordic Innovation worked closely with the Nordic countries to develop a single Nordic digital market and support innovative digital solutions that will improve the life of citizens and the effectiveness of doing business in the region. The lighthouse project was part of the Nordic Co-Operation Programme for Business and Innovation 2014-2017.
Activities
By connecting the Nordic digital agencies, private companies and experts, a number of key digital cooperation tracks have been identified. Nordic Innovation has together with relevant stakeholders within each track created a collaborative task force.
Track 1: Nordic eID
- The project will identify and document similarities and differences among the electronic identity (eID) systems in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
- It will look for solutions and issues related to cross-border use of the national eIDs issued in each country. The project will exploit experiences and knowledge from the EU large scale pilots STORK, eSENS, the framework programme CEF Telecom Digital,as well as work related to the eIDAS regulation.
- The project aims to encourage Nordic cross-border cooperation on eID and its market opportunities, as well as on eSignature.
- Read the report: Nordic digital identification (eID): Survey and recommendations for cross border cooperation.
- Track lead: Difi (the Norwegian Directorate for Administration and ICT) is driving this project and is responsible for the provision and the quality of the Nordic project deliverables.
Track 2: Nordic SmartGovernment
- Nordic SmartGovernment is a vision of a new digital infrastructure for automated exchange of business data. The purpose is to share and utilise data more efficiently, avoid manual processes and extract the full value embedded in data, digitisation and automation.
- If the vision is realised, it will transform the communication between businesses and governments with potentially enormous positive economic impact on both Nordic enterprises and governments.
- Read more at www.nordicsmartgovernment.org.
- Track lead: The Danish Business Authority
Track 3: Data Driven Innovation
- The project aims to explore how a public-private collaboration in the Nordic digital community can accelerate digital innovation in the Nordic countries, from idea and data to commercialized digital services and products.
- As part of this track, Nordic Innovation and partners are proud to present the Nordic challenge on data driven innovation: Hack4Norden 2016.
- Track lead: Nordic Innovation will, with the support of the involved national digital agencies, take a leading role.
Understanding the ecosystem
Understanding your environment is crucial for any project, not at least when operating in complex landscape like the Nordic digital area. Our report, "The Nordic Digital Ecosystem – actors, strategies, opportunities," describes the possibilities for Nordic digital collaboration by providing an overview of the actors and their characteristics, analysing the actors’ will and abilities to collaborate, and highlighting potential business cases for such collaboration.
The Nordic Digital Ecosystem report describes possibilities for Nordic digital collaboration by providing an overview of the actors in the Nordic digital ecosystem and their characteristics, an analysis of the actors’ will and abilities to collaborate, and a discussion of potential business cases for such collaboration.
The Nordic added value
The success of the lighthouse project is reliant on a strong collaboration with the different digital agencies in the Nordic countries. At Nordic Digital Forum 2015-2016, participants from private and public sector zoomed in on the Nordic digital challenges and examined possible solutions.