Opening and Speakers introduction

Kaimar Karu, MA, Former Foreign Trade and IT Minister of Estonia – „Navigating complexity and building resilience“

Executive Summary: „To survive and thrive in the modern world, organisations need to be able to adjust quickly. Often, the attempts at growing organisational capabilities are planned as sponsor-focused career-backing faux-predictable-future projects, rather than context-sensitive continual improvement. Accepting that the future is messy, planning is of limited effect, and actions have undesired consequences is difficult for many, going against the accepted management wisdom of yesteryear. This session explores the application of complexity science to modern management challenges, providing several approaches and methods to navigating complex environments and building organisational resilience.

Mae Leyrer, EMBA, Transformation and Innovation Executive – „Crises as an opportunity“

Executive Summary: Crises is by definition an unstable or crucial time in which a decisive change is impending. Somehow many of us tend to translate this decisive change into something negative. In reality, it’s nothing but a necessary shift, which each leader will translate to their team as either negative or positive. How is crises an opportunity? How to bring the best out of your team in crises assuring that the change is by default positive? Mae will cover these topics with her over 20 years of global executive experience in course of which she has helped to transform multiple big and small companies.

Presentations of Scientific Articles

•  S. Alireza Lajevardi – “Defining a suitable definition and understanding the companies’ readiness for starting transition journey toward industry 4.0 by focusing on Estonian manufacturers” 
• Magnus Hoppe and Kamran Namdar – ”Releasing the potentials – Educating transformative entrepreneurial selves for a better world”
• Marina Z. Solesvik and Paul Westhead – “Entrepreneurial Approaches and Radical Innovation: Norwegian Context” 
• Aleksandra Pečiūrienė – ”Young Lithuanian consumers’ innovativeness regarding innovative food products”
• Carl-Richard Saks – ”Automation and digitalization in Estonian underground oil shale mines – feasibility study of new technologies”

Fun activity

Marina Kaljurand, MA; MEP; Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia – “European Digital Agenda: A View from the European Parliament”

In February 2020 European Commission introduced a political document – Shaping Europe’s Digital Future. One of the goals of the strategy is to contribute towards a fair and competitive economy. Many European companies and SMEs in particular have been slow at taking up digital solutions and therefore have not benefited from them and missed opportunities to scale up. How to change it?

Piret Mürk-Dubout, Member of the Management Board of AS Tallink Grupp – “Planning for the Future in Tourism in 2020 – making the impossible possible”

Executive summary: The global COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the tourism industry the most across the globe and to predict the sector’s future, speed of recovery and how traveller’s attitudes towards travelling and willingness to travel will change in the short and long term, one would need a pretty good chrystal ball. Tallink Grupp, among many other tourism and international transport sector companies across the world, has had to adapt, change and develop almost psychic abilities in the last 6 months in order to plan for the unplanned. Piret Mürk-Dubout has seen change through in a number of sectors and companies over the years and is now a key figure leading the re-writing of the Baltic sea region’s travel, cruising and leisure future following the annus horribilis of 2020.

Closing of the conference

Post-conference tour in Ülemiste City and EUAS Campus