The Masters of Digital 2025 as Digital Europe’s flagship event on 20 February 2025 was all about the question on how to shape the future of the technology and digital sector, especially in these times of geopolitical insecurities and a more than competitive market. This blog post aims to put the critical topics into the spotlight and summarizes the introduction to the conference. You can get more information about the content of the conference on Masters of Digital 2025, where the recordings will soon be posted, too.
“Nations with superior tech will prevail.”
– Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl
Director General, DIGITALEUROPE
The quote above was one of the keynote statements emphasizing the importance of advancements and innovative ideas in Europe. The goal should be to strengthen relevant companies and further their growth, because the essential problem is not the lack of potential on the continent but a lack of “speed and scale”. We must find ways to keep the ideas and innovations in Europe and realize them in and efficient, deregulated way. To highlight Europe’s position in the global tech-game, the keynote-speaker stated, that Europe is a global leader in only 1 of 8 critical technologies: connectivity. Critical technologies are those essential to the lives of the people.
In order to reach those raised expectations and keep up with the current leaders in technology, Digital Europe proposed a 3-step game plan:
- Cut regulations
- Lower regulatory burdens by 50 %
- Make reaching the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) easier
- Simplify
- EU and NATO scale procurement
- One stop shop for companies
- Incentivise
- 25 % of the EU budget to digital technologies
- Digital transformation, skills, critical technologies
In addition, the demand of a “unified, scalable EU defense market” came up, to be prepared for the global technology race.
Further challenges
There are numerous challenges we are facing, due to the factors mentioned above. Another important point is the lack of investment in Europe. The EU has lost attractiveness as industrial site as well as in terms of chances and promising positions for employees. The goal here is to create an environment that holds growth and possibilities for future development. In addition, we need to strengthen Europe as a place of qualitative education that also attracts students from abroad.
Where technology and the digital sphere intertwine, there is always data. Data is and will be the future of every technological development. Therefore, it is crucial to reach complete digital independency and emphasize the protection of our data.