The eSkills week was opened with the discussion “Digital Skills for Development and Growth of Latvia” that was attended by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Regional Development Kaspars Gerhards, the President of the Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association (LICTA) Signe Bāliņa, the Minister of Transport Uldis Augulis, the Chairwoman of the Board of RIX Technologies Eva Butāne, the Head of Microsoft Latvija Ēriks Eglītis, the Head of the Office of the Minister of Education and Science Andis Geižāns and Chairman of the Board of the Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LSRTC) Jānis Bokta.
At the opening discussion of the eSkills week the Chairwoman of the Board of Technologies Eva Butāne said: “I believe that the poor results of the Latvian companies in the sphere of integration of digital technologies – we are almost the last, ranking 27th among EU Member States – has to be viewed in close relation to whether businesspeople invest in the development of new products and services and whether they are able to find and use digital technologies. Therefore our key goal in the eSkills week is to address businesspeople and convince them on the advantages of the use of digital environment, the significance of investments in the development of new, innovative products and services, and development and strengthening of on-line sales.”
RIX Technologies provided businesspeople an opportunity to improve their eSkills by attending the workshop “Electronic market and small business. Utopia or reality?”. In the workshop businesspeople were offered a presentation of the Electronic Procurement System and showed how to use it. The workshop was organised on 8 March at 3.00 p.m. in the premises of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on K. Valdemāra iela 35. To provide access to the workshop for the regional businesspeople as well, live broadcast was provided and it was used by record number of participants.
All these years Latvia has been the most active organiser of the eSkills week in Europe. More than 180,000 participants were involved in the events of the eSkills week and more than 4,500 different events were organised so far.