Cluster promotion and mobile services for the Tourism industry

“Cluster promotion and mobile services for the Tourism industry” was a Quadruple cross-border cluster seminar arranged in Norrtälje, Sweden. The seminar focused on clusters, women entrepreneurship and innovations such as ICT services for mobile phones.

Mobile services for the Tourism industry

Christer Carlsson started off his lecture by emphasising that the Travel industries competitive advantage in the future will build on effective mobile solutions. The phone is a personal device that we bring everywhere. Thus it is clever to build a platform for tourist services on mobile phones. However many of the network operators do not focus on mobile services. The technology is developed but the products have not taken off yet. Carlsson believes it has to do with an “engineering perspective” on the services so far, the network operators do not have a customer perspective when releasing new services. Meaning the customers do not see the need for many of the current services and they do not fit into the everyday routines of users, that is why they have not broken through.

From "triple helix" to "quadruple helix"

Workshop 1

The first workshop topic was From ‘triple helix’ to ‘quadruple helix’ . The report was made by Malin Lindberg, Luleå University of Technology. The key questions for discussion were:

• What is your cluster?
• Which accumulation of enterprises?
• Which goods and services are you selling?

Cluster networking in practice

Worskhop 2

The second workshop topic was: Cluster networking in practice. The discussion was managed by Gunilla Sterner, Stockholm County Administrative Board. Participants in the workshop first discussed in national groups about how cooperation will take place in the region.Then the international groups consisting of the participants from all the partner countries discussed how to cooperate cross-boarder.

WINNET Europe

An Innovative system of WRC s in Europe for Development and Growth!

WINNET Europe is involved in Quadruple as additional partner. It is an European network of 600 Women Resource centres across Europe originating from a EU-funded project, Interreg IIIC WINNET. Today it is a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) functioning as an infrastructure and tool for womens participation in regional development and growth.

Innovation systems and clusters in policy and research

Malin Lindbergs lecture focused on explaining and discussing different concepts and methods often used in the promotion of regional development and growth.

It is popular in policy to promote entrepreneurship which is a wide concept that grasps many phenomenon’s. The basis is that entrepreneurship involves different types of firms; SME’s, Cooperatives and Corporations and the assumptions is that increased entrepreneurship will give society;

• economic growth
• employment
• creativity

Networks of entrepreneurs

• Networks
• Clusters
• Innovation systems
• Triple helix Read More

SWOT analysis of ICT needs

Workshop 3

This workshop was organized and moderated by Franck Tétard, Mats Jakobsson, Jonas Landor, Pia Levin and Sarah Lindström from Åbo Akademi, mangers of WP4 in Quadruple.