Fourth B2B event within Green ICT Development (GIVE) project – Belgrade, Serbia On 19-20 June 2019 Serbian Automotive Cluster organized the fourth B2B event in the framework of Green ICT Development (GIVE) project in Belgrade, Serbia. The first part of the event at GIZ premises in Belgrade, where the project partner meeting was held. Also, during the first day presentations were held by clusters coming from Croatia, Egypt and France, which are potential GIVE partners for future activities. The main event took place on the second day, at the Science Technology Park in Belgrade, where the opening session started with welcome speech by Mr. Igor Vijatov, Cluster Manager at Serbian Automotive Cluster and Mr. Tomislav Knezevic, Senior Project Manager at GIZ Serbia. After the opening session Ms. Anna Naydenova, Executive Director of ICT Cluster Bulgaria presented the GIVE project and explained the opportunities this project gives for three sectors from the Western Balkan region, ICT, Green – tech and automotive, to network as frequently as possible. Next on the agenda was the keynote speaker, Mr. Pierluigi Ghione, General Manager SEE, MAGNA Seating Division with presentation on the main topic: Digital Future of the Automotive Industry. In the following presentation Mr. Filip Mrdak coming from the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, presented the Center for Digital Transformation: national response to global trends and needs. The project is very special activity through which ICT companies will help companies from other sectors to realize what type(s) of digital transformations they should undertake. It is a consultative process through which ICT sector will raise awareness for the advantages that digital transformation could give to other sectors and the replication of it is much needed for the whole region. In the third session of the event four companies presented their innovative solutions, services and best practices. Starting with representative from Mitsubishi Electric who presented the Factory Automation Platforms in the company. The second presentation was focused on the Sensor Technologies developed by the Serbian company Novelic, following with presentation by representative from the company Festo on the subject: Automation of Production Processes. In the last presentation, representative from the company Andromeda Holding presented their unique products and services. The event ended with short company pitching and B2B meetings between the participants in order to establish networking and discuss present activities, products, services, joint projects, partnerships, exchange of experience and market information. It is worth mentioning that this was the fourth B2B meeting organized on behalf of the GIVE project and companies participating in these meetings are frequently repeating. This means that discussions for corporations are going on the next level each time same companies meet. In addition, GIVE project is proud to state that there are already partnership agreements signed between several companies coming from different countries from the region. There are two more B2B events that will happen in Sofia and Cluj in September and October, respectively. The final GIVE conference will take place in Skopje at the end of November, during which all companies from the region and representatives of the European Commission will probably wrap up all the partnerships started throughout the project. This event will also be utilized for the presentation of the Internationalization strategy related to approach of Western Balkan companies to third markets such as China and Egypt. Stay up to date with all the future activities within the project by following the GIVE Facebook page and GIVE LinkedIn group. MASIT successfully implemented the second cycle of Requalification of ICT workforce Programme supported by USAID REG Project MASIT – ICT Chamber of commerce successfully implemented the second cycle of Requalification of ICT workforce Programme, supported by USAID REG Project. Within the activities of the project, the unemployed candidates coming from non-ICT sector, and other candidates coming from other sectors, had an opportunity to be reqilified in order to gain some other skills, knowledge and practical experience for ICT profiles required by ICT companies in North Macedonia. The goal of the project is to create new ICT workforce pool of candidates and in parallel give opportunity to the candidates to be employed in ICT companies at junior programming positions or other positions related to the ICT sector. Witinh the second cycle of Requalification of ICT workforce Programme 34 students in total gained new knowledge and skills to work as a junior position Front-End Web Developer wih focus on “react” technology. The training provider responsible for the training and the teaching methodology for the cycle two was Brainster. The first class from the Re-qualification Project, cycle 2, was held on 5th of March in the premises of the training provider – Brainster. Since then, the students have been learning the Web Programming with HTML & CSS, BOOTSTRAP & JavaScript fundamentals & JavaScript Advanced. MASIT and Brainster organized final presentations of the final project of the students in front of companies interested to take interns and new employees. The presentations took place on 27th and 28th of June 2019 during which students presented the web sites they created as final product of the knowledge gained. At the presentations CEOs, HR and tech leads from MASIT member companies were present, and they had questions and time left to talk with the students, in order to build a better connection for the future process of internship or employment of the students. GIVE partnership signed Memorandum of understanding (MoU) with four different partners coming from 3rd market countries. During the first half of Green ICT Development (GIVE) project implementation, three different Focus group meetings were held, dedicated to the following topics: Cross-industry collaboration, Barriers of SME internationalization and Internationalization potential and interested third markets. The main goal of the Focus groups is to use the intelligence gathering, assessment of market trends and opportunities in conjunction with the consortium capabilities and needs in order to create the Market Intelligence Report. The report will include recommendations on: Internationalization readiness of cluster managers and SMEs, GIVE areas of cooperation and complementarity among partners (technological, business, R&D, innovation) and Target markets outside Europe.