Recently there have been many discussions on the need to support and utilize young entrepreneurs and those involved in creative industries as an important export driver, reviver of national branding and economic growth in the countries of the Baltic Sea Region.
Balticlab is a new concept created by the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the Swedish Institute to fill what was recognised as a relative lack of networks bringing young talented entrepreneurs and creative industries from the region together, but also to provide them with a platform for working together more concretely on a regional level.
The aim of Balticlab is therefore to create a link between individuals with potential to drive change and innovation on the one hand and the policy-making and policy-enacting community, engaged in Baltic Sea Region territorial cooperation, on the other.
Balticlab is made up of two components: the wider Balticlab Network and the Balticlab Project Development Programme. The Balticlab Network represents a group of entrepreneurs and creatives, who have taken part in our Networking Weekend. The more intensified Balticlab Project Development Programme on the other hand, is made up of a smaller group of participants, selected from the Network to work on a more concrete level on projects for a period of three months.
This spring a group of 19 individuals from the Balticlab Network were thus invited to form working groups to develop project prototypes that link their personal interests with the need to foster integration in the region. The “balticlabers”, who came from Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden, met and worked intensively during three interlinked modules in Malmö, Nida and Kaliningrad between April-June 2013. They were provided with the tools, coaching and perspectives needed to manage macro-regional cross-border collaborations in areas related to their own interests, but with a link to the themes addressed by the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). The Balticlab Project Development Programme sparked four new projects: Project Little Brother, Baltic Design Ship, Mind Mill and Social Innovation Baltic. Projects, which are ambitious by nature and provide fresh impetus on regional integration.
Given the success of Balticlab, the CBSS and the SI running a follow-up to the pilot project this December- titled Balticlab 2.0. The name of the follow-up reflects in character- this year Balticlab also includes participants from Estonia and Latvia, is bigger in size and more focused in coaching the participants to increase their professional skillset in a regional context. Balticlab 2.0 will kick off with another Networking Weekend in Stockholm on 13-15 December, after which a smaller group of participants will continue with the Balticlab 2.0 Project Development Programme in February 2014. Just as its pilot, Balticlab 2.0 is guided by the principle of creating a dynamic regional community of interdisciplinary individuals, who hold the key to lifting the Baltic Sea Region to a more innovative and collaborative future as a whole. See www.balticlab-online.eu for more information on the projects from this year, the programme and participants.
Balticlab is a flagship project under Horizontal Action Neighbours of the European Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and also on Twitter/Balticlab and Facebook/balticlab.