From 27 to 29 November 2019, Riga hosted one of the most important 5G technology events in the world—Baltic Sea Region 2nd 5G Ecosystem Forum “5G Techritory”. The forum was managed by the Latvian State company Electronic Communications Office of Latvia and gathered around 850 participants representing more than 40 countries, including over 90 prominent speakers from the Nordic Council of Ministers, DG Connect, International Telecommunication Union and other institutions, and managers of multinational companies. This event was also attended by Latvian and foreign officials: Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia, Sweden Minister for Energy and Digital Development, Minister of Digitalisation in Norway, Minister of Economics, Minister of Transport, Minister of Environment Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, and others.
Topicalities in the global commercialisation of 5G technology, the related innovative business models and possible cross-border projects were covered in high-level business- and policy-related discussions paying special attention to several aspects, like Smart City, Smart Mobility, Industry 4.0, and Smart Media & Entertainment. The forum also hosted a 5G technology fair and the first-ever 5G policymakers’ hackathon which produced a comprehensive summary of principles adopted internationally for developing and introducing 5G technologies.
Forum was organised by several companies who split their responsibilities, and we were in charge of integrated communication strategy and plan for promoting the forum abroad by paying particular attention to these target countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Japan, Korea, China, USA, UK, Belgium.
Our strategy resulted in over 500 publications in various media, organisations’ websites, and social platforms. Information on 5G Techritory was also covered by several global mass media, like The Next Web, Forbes, Tech.eu., Yahoo news, etc. Overall, 64 media representatives from 15 countries, including those from Forbes, Reuters, The Economist, Bloomberg, Tech.eu, Financial Times (the Netherlands), and DZone attended the forum and held 54 interviews with forum speakers altogether. Over three months, 61 Facebook posts reaching the audience of 21,300 people, 54 tweets on Twitter reaching 72,086 people, and 50 posts on LinkedIn resulting in 46,846 impressions were devoted to 5G Techritory forum. In addition, more than 9300 visitors visited the forum’s website www.5Gtechritory.com resulting in over 44 thousand page views within three months.
We also were responsible for the direct communication with partners and sponsors and target audiences, including sectoral NGOs and public institutions, the advertising campaign, invitation process, a video before the forum, filming during the forum, including interviews with forum participants, and making two videos after the forum.
Our activities in securing the Baltic Sea Region 5G Ecosystem Forum “5G Techritory” and MR-Digital meeting were also appreciated by the Minister of Environment Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, who stressed the importance of strengthening the international cooperation of the Baltic Sea Region in developing 5G technologies.
