The Digital Single Market is an incredible opportunity for Europe, estimated to deliver up to €250 billion in economic growth by 2020 according to EC predictions. The European Commission tackles a lot of challenges to make it happen, e.g. providing better on-line access to digital goods and services. But while discussing data protection, consumer and contract rules and VAT issues - all necessary to overcome existing barriers of cross-border commercial activities - one barrier is overlooked: languages. Languages are de facto blocking cross-border commerce. Customers are six times more likely to buy from sites in their native language (Source: "Multilingual Europe...a Call for Action") which is proven by te fact that "today only 15% of consumers shop online from another EU country " (Source: DSM).
At the ICT2015 Lisbon, a competition has been launched at our networking session GROWTH! How to connect languages and transform commerce for the Digital Single Market. The idea behind is to find feasable solutions that help to make the multilingual Digital Single Market (mlDSM) and in particular, the cross-border e-Commerce a reality. Such solutions can be addressed to consumers that want to buy Europe-wide, or SMEs that want to offer products or services across border.
Who can participate? Anybody who has a product/service (even if not fully developed) that would help make the multilingual Digital Single Market and in particular, cross-border e-Commerce, a reality.
How to participate? Fill in the mlDSM Competition Form (soon to come) and send it in by 28 February 2016.
Selection: A jury (names soon to come) will shortlist the three best proposals and then select the winner. The winner will be invited to the LT-Innovate Summit 2016 (June, Brussels) where s/he can present the solution before the audience that includes also VCs. The shortlisted second and third will be able to present their solutions but would need to cover their travel costs themselves.
Selection criteria: 1. The proposed solution must meet a real need 2. The proposed solution must be feasible in short to mid-term 3. Timeline and, if applicable, budget to deploy the solution.
Contact us for more information.
