OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions & Cities’ Post

If you have not been, do plan a trip to Turin - it's great! Last week we had our first D4SME Workshop in Italy on "Boosting SME Digitalisation for local development" (https://lnkd.in/epxtrRVM), organized with the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy and CIM4.0 - Competence Center of Turin, as well as Business at OECD (BIAC) - kindly hosted by Intesa Sanpaolo in their beautiful headquarters (check the Skyscraper's pics below!). In the morning we engaged in a wide-ranging (and at times heated!) discussions on #digital #skills (moderated by Angelina Cannizzaro), #Smart #Manufacturing (Rokas Morkūnas Morkunas), and SME digitalization for #local development (Raffaele Spallone): ✅ digital skills, shared standards, and knowledge transfer at local level are key for SMEs to uptake software solutions ✅ Industry 5.0 applications and processes can also help the "green" transition of SMEs ✅ cooperation among private and public institutions (from large companies to competence centre) can help unlock important productivity and competitiveness gains for SMEs In the afternoon we visited the CIM 4.0 facilities, looking at how small and medium manufacturing businesses are integrating advanced #robotics (friendly #robodog in the pics), #virtualreality, and #3Dprinting in their processes and value chains. To conclude, we gathered the D4SME Steering Group for a strategic discussion on our programme for 2025-26, with focus on topics from Artificial Intelligence, to digital skills, #cybersecurity and local development - including some surprises for our Roundtable in April 2025 in Paris. The D4SME Chair, vice-Minister Valentino Valentini, led us through this very full day of activities, together with the OECD - OCDE Deputy Secretary General Fabrizia Lapecorella and our Director Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, the Mayor of Turin Stefano Lo Russo, ISP President of the Board of Directors Gian Maria Gros Pietro, and vice-Rector of the University of Turin Guido Boella. We had in the room OECD governments (including Korea, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, UK), small and large businesses (including our partners Microsoft Jeremy Rollison and Amazon Erwan Bertrand), innovation centres, academia, and many representatives of Turin's main business and sector associations, bringing local knowledge and flavour to the meeting. Special thanks to Camilla Gentili, Matteo Bandiera, Antonio Petrarulo from the Permanent Delegation of Italy to the OECD, and of course Lucia Cusmano, Madison Lucas and Eugenie Joseph, for sharing the burden and the fun of organising such an event. Stay Tuned! https://lnkd.in/exEEUwmf OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions & Cities Finbar Pearson Shayne MacLachlan Pauline Arbel Camera di commercio di Torino API Torino - Association of SME in Turin (Italy) Roberta Ragaišytė David Heinen Joanna Zawistowska Maria Magdoń