First hackathon as a policy-making tool
At the end of 2019, the Ministry of Economics organised a hackathon of 5G policy makers involving European and Baltic policy makers, entrepreneurs, mobile communication providers, as well as lawyers from nine countries around the world who assessed existing sectoral policies and jointly sought solutions for a more targeted creation and deployment of 5G innovations in the Baltic Sea Region. The hackathon took place in cooperation with the VAS “Elektroniskie sakari”, the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia and Latvijas Mobilais Telefons. The hackathon of 5G policy makers was part of the 5G Techritory Forum of the Baltic Sea region, which held discussions of international experts on topics of concern in the context of 5G: smart cities, mobility solutions, Industry 4.0 and digital transformation in the industry, new opportunities with 5G technology in the media and entertainment field.
Recommendations for further work
The hackathon has resulted in recommendations to promote the deployment of new 5G technologies in the Baltic Sea Region. The recommendations have been sent to a number of partners: the European Commission, the responsible ministries of the Baltic Sea Region countries, as well as to organisations promoting innovation. The recommendations include solutions to address four problems in the Baltic Sea Region:
- establishment of a “black box” for the prevention of incidents of autonomous means of transport;
- establishment of an air traffic platform bringing together multilateral information on air users, the air environment and various safety aspects to facilitate the use of unmanned aircraft;
- setting up an innovation area in cities to promote testing of smart city solutions; creating a data sharing platform for more efficient city management;
- improvement of the environment to encourage truck driving through 4G and 5G networks.
The recommendations are available here.