On 12 November, Vinje Municipality and University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) organised a workshop with local companies to present and discuss solutions to be tested in the next phase of their pilot.

The meeting took place at Vinjesenteret, a newly opened centre for journalism and literature. The first part of the meeting was dedicated to cybersecurity. Shreyas Srinivasa from Aalborg University and COM³ joined the meeting via video link to talk about cyber security risks in SMEs.

“Shreyas’ kind contribution was a very good example of how COM³ allows us draw on the expertise of European partners. The presentation was very valuable for our pilot participants”, says Kyrre Hegg, project manager in Vinje.

In the second part of the meeting, the project team presented solutions emanating from the insights and ideation phases of the pilot. The solutions include a strengthening of the Vinje municipality’s communication with local companies through regular newsletters, as well as quarterly meetings about business development hosted by the mayor and the head of business support. The pilot will also test how a learning management system (LMS) may be implemented for SMEs. For the test, Vinje and USN have partnered up with Telemark Kompetanse, a local company providing LMS solutions based on the Moodle platform.