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TCI Newsletter February 2010
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Message of the President
Dear TCI friends,
The challenging economic times we're all living through forced TCI, once more, to move our Annual Global Conference from its original location. New Delhi, India, will be the new venue where we'll meet this year from November 29 to December 3 to exchange ideas, methodologies and to network around innovation, regional development and, of course, clustering. The Institute for Competitiveness India will act as our hosting organization. The local organizing team leaded by Amit Kapoor, member of the TCI Board of Directors, is already working in close collaboration with TCI to ensure a high-level conference. India is one of the protagonists of the new economic order that is transforming the global economy. With over 500 cluster initiatives put in place, both in traditional industry and high tech sectors, India presents a huge untapped potential for international policy makers, cluster practitioners and other business actors.
Even though physical places and personal relationships still matters a lot, today I'm going to use this space for a brief reflection on virtual networking. In the last Newsletter, I introduced those I believe are the key challenges as a global community dedicated to clustering, innovation and regional competitiveness. One of this defiances, that in this specific case would be more appropriate to define as a great opportunity, is that represented by social networks and how TCI can better take advantage of them. Since this is indeed a "hot topic", a couple of weeks ago The Economist published a survey entirely dedicated to this phenomenon and its potential. Figures about social network development are impressive, but what is most interesting for the TCI community is the fact that the more focused the networks are, the better they work. In this sense, TCI has an immense potential to deploy: people and organizations all over the word working on similar subjects and with a huge amount of practical knowledge to share.
The TCI members are well aware of this huge potential and our last global annual conference held in Jyväskylä was a little appetizer of the value that a more intensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT - that could be an anagram of TCI) could provide to TCI. A more interactive website that is being launched together with this Newsletter will be another little step forward for promoting a more intense use of social networks and communication technologies within TCI community. Some TCI regional networks like the RedLAC (the Latin American cluster practitioners network, recently created inside TCI) are another good pilot example of how instruments like LinkedIn or other communication tools could help to keep in touch from meeting to meeting or to enlarge the network to newcomers. But, even the most advanced and fancy communication tool would be useless if the content is not good. Attractive and user-friendly tools can help a lot, but TCI greatest treasury remains in its members' individual experience and tacit knowledge. Well before social networks and other ICT toys were discovered and just few months after its establishment, TCI launched a Cluster Initiative Database that is still alive and online with the aim of serving as a sort of "phone directory" to find the right person to speak with in TCI community. Almost twelve years later, I still believe in this simple tool nowadays, when other similar databases has been set up with much more means. In fact, the strength and potential of the TCI Cluster Initiative Database rely neither on its wideness, nor on its functionalities or aesthetical attractiveness, but on the spirit of mutual cooperation and knowledge sharing behind, and of course, in the personal relationship created at TCI events. So I hope to see you at one of our events throughout the year and in New Delhi in November.
Alberto Pezzi
TCI President
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Asia - Pacific | Frontpage -
23/02/2010
New venue, book the dates! The TCI 2010 Annual Global Conference will be held in New Delhi, India, November 29 - December 3 and the Institute for Competitiveness India will act as our hosting organization. The local organizing team leaded by Amit Kapoor, member of the TCI Board of Directors, is already working in close collaboration with TCI to ensure a high-level conference. The information will be soon updated on the conference site.
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Latin America -
14/01/2010
"World Class Sustainable Competitive Tourism Clusters",
7-10 April 2010, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
REGISTRATION OPEN at http://drtourismclusters.com/. Share four intense days, 7-10 April, on "World Class Sustainable Competitive Tourism Clusters" with cluster practitioners and tourism professionals from all over the world and experience on-site tourism clustering in one of the top destinations in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic. Save the date, spread the word, and do not miss this opportunity!
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Asia - Pacific -
13/01/2010
“Competitiveness, Clusters and Development”
28-29 April 2010, New Delhi, India.
TCI and Institute for Competitiveness, India, are organizing the 1st TCI Asia Competitiveness Forum to be held the 28th and 29th of April 2010, in New Delhi, India. The Forum will focus on the theme of “Competitiveness, Clusters and Development”. New Delhi 2010 will be the first conference that talks of issues related to competitiveness, clusters, social impact of clusters, SMEs and clusters, economic development, regional competitiveness, cross national issues, equitable growth, sustainability, policy imperatives, corporate role in economic development and eventually alleviating poverty at Asia level with specific focus on firm strategy, impact of clusters and policy imperatives.
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Latin America -
25/02/2010
“Clusters: Businesses and regional development opportunities for Latin America”
21-25 June 2010, Medellin, Colombia.
We are pleased to invite you to the 5th Latin American Cluster Conference (5CLAC) in Medellin, Colombia, about “Clusters: Businesses and regional development opportunities for Latin America” organized by TCI Network, The Medellin´s City Hall and The Chamber of Commerce of Medellin for Antioquia. The 5CLAC will gather professionals and organizations that actively work in the improvement of competitiveness and development of strategic clusters.
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Europe -
25/02/2010
1st TCI Darmstadt Cluster Conference
15-16 April 2010.
Under the patronage of the TCI German Contact Point, the Hessenmetall Cluster-Initiative is organising the 1st Darmstadt TCI Cluster Conference from 15-16 April 2010. The conference provides companies, politicians, cluster-managers and scientists with an interactive forum to discuss their individual requirements of the use and increasing measurable benefits a cluster initiative should provide.
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Africa - PACF -
21/02/2010
2nd Continental Conference of the Pan-African Competitiveness Forum
15-17 February 2010, Elmina, Ghana.
The second meeting of the Pan African Competitiveness Forum was held in Elmina (Ghana) from 15 to 17 February. The three-day conference under the theme: "Cluster Initiatives for Africa Economic Development and Sustainability", gathered about 120 delegates and cluster practitioners from 13 different African countries and other international institutions within and outside Africa. The conference offered the opportunity of presenting several cluster initiatives carried out in the continent.
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Europe -
25/02/2010
Article by Alessandro Minello.
Today one of the main characteristics of regional, social and economic development is the presence of networks among the actors involved: firms, private organizations, government agencies, research institutions, practitioners, etc. Clusters, in particular, are considered as principal drivers of economic development, both in developed and developing areas. According to Porter’s theory clusters affect competition in three broad ways: first, by increasing the productivity of companies based in the area; second, by driving the direction and pace of innovation; and third, by stimulating the formation of new businesses within the cluster.
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Europe -
25/02/2010
Giacomo Becattini, Marco Bellandi, and L. De Propris (eds.) A Handbook of Industrial Districts, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2009.
This Handbook is a collection of contributions that comment on the historical and contemporary role of industrial districts and related topics, such as socio-cultural and institutional factors of industrial development, business clusters, regional innovation systems, international production strategies, and public policies.
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Europe -
25/02/2010
Paper by Dr. Gerd Meier zu Köcker from Institute for Innovation and Technology, Germany. Clusters practitioners, policy makers, economic development agencies, as well as clusters managers themselves, are concerned with the reason of the initial establishment of clusters. Why do certain clusters develop better than others? How do the perfect framework conditions look like for clusters development? Is it only a financial question? Is it usually due to favorable local factor conditions, demand conditions, or the presence of other related or supporting industries close by (when the Porter diamond approach is applied)? What kind of impact could public activities have? Can policy makers trigger the emergence of clusters? Are clusters comparable and can they be benchmarked in order to learn from the best?
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Europe -
25/02/2010
Read more Information about these workshops organized by TCI members, that can give cluster practitioners a further inspiration in how to deal with current challenges.
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TCI -
25/02/2010
We especially welcome the new TCI organizational member Instituto Euvaldo Lodi - NRMG. Thanks for your support to TCI Network!
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