A short summary clip of the conference - here: Video Conference Highlights
Organized by TCI and ATEED-Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development, the 14th TCI Annual Global Conference was held in Auckland, New Zealand during the week of November 28th, 2011. 234 experts from 35 countries exchanged experiences on current cluster trends and best practices under the main theme "Competitiveness at the edge".
A number of key themes emerged from the broad range of topics covered by 83 speakers in the conference's 39 sessions:
• Clusters are an integral part of the overall competitiveness agenda
A number of speakers, including Xianbin Yao, Director General at the ADB, discussed how clusters and competitiveness are connected at the level of specific geographic locations. Yao's contribution, for example, focused on the role of megacities, a key basis for portfolios of connected clusters, in Asia's growth.
• Clusters are an important new policy tool when a traditional policy approach of open markets runs into diminishing returns
Several speakers from New Zealand discussed how the open market-growth model that their country adopted after dramatic reforms in the 1980s is now in need of new tools to reach the next level of growth and prosperity. TCI was invited to make a submission to the Auckland Plan, a new long-term strategy for the city region, on how clusters can be better leveraged as such a tool.
• Cluster management 2.0: new tools to manage, leverage, support, and track cluster efforts
Cluster management is moving from an art to a profession. Cluster initiative managers talked about new tools to collaborate within and across clusters, facilitate innovation, and benchmark operational performance. Cluster program managers discussed new ways to assess the impact of cluster support mechanism, implement cluster efforts in emerging economies, and use clusters as drivers of regional competitiveness.
Delegates included representatives from main national and regional development agencies, governments, research centers, cluster initiatives and companies like NZTE-New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, Invest Northern Ireland, SEBRAE Minas Gerais, Baltic Innovation Agency, RegX Denmark, Orkestra, Basque Government, ACC10-Catalan Government, Desert Knowledge Australia, IZKA Izmir, SEDEC Nuevo Leon, CNC Dominican Republic, Medellin Chamber of Commerce, CCI Lyon, EduCluster Finland, WOTRA, New Generation Cluster, ICT Cluster Bern, Hessenmetall, IHK Zetis, MFG Innovation Agency, Cluster Programme Uganda and IFC India.
At the General Assembly, Christian Ketels (Sweden) was elected new President of TCI for a two year term, Klaus Hassis (Germany) was elected new Secretary and Ted Lyman (US) and Richard Walker (Australia) were elected new members of the Board. The new TCI Board consists of 11 members from around the world as representatives of this global network. TCI has grown in last years to a global network of 3,000 experts in 100 countries, supported by more than 50 organizational members.
The 15th TCI Annual Global Conference will take place in Bilbao and San Sebastian from 16th to 19th October 2012 and will be organized by Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness and the Basque Government.
For more information about TCI and its activities during the year:
Patricia Valdenebro, General Manager: +34 93 3094834, info@tci-network.org
02.12.2011 Press Note - 14th TCI Annual Global Conference
22 December 2011
