On 28 and 29 September, the NBEC held its key event of the year – the 7th Conference of German Economic Clubs from CEE countries.

On 5 September, after the traditional summer break, our regular club evening took place.

At the July Club Evening we had the honour of welcoming Olga Shcherbina, Head of the International Finance Corporation’s Minsk office, as a guest.

Electromobility is a topic that is gaining more and more attention worldwide.

On 5 May, a new format was added to the repertoire of our Club events – a full-fledged one-day workshop. The idea for this event came from the members themselves and was developed thanks to their suggestions. The theme of the workshop is the consideration of theoretical aspects and examples of practical application of modern trends in management, namely Agile-management, system management and corporate culture. Three experienced trainers – Vladimir Gorshunov and Aleksey Alekseev from Belarusian company AgileLab, and Heiko Brix, representing Brix-Coaching & Training from Germany – presented the mentioned topics and covered a wide range of related issues.

The event focused on the possibilities of applying the acquired knowledge in practice, exercises as well as interaction with each other, exchange of views and experiences between participants and trainers as well as among the participants themselves – rather than simply passing on theoretical knowledge. The whole event was planned according to this principle. The venue – a cottage at the Robinson Club on the Minsk Sea, the time – a whole day off, and the format – round tables instead of theatre or podium seating – were to encourage interaction with each other and creativity.

The coaches delivered very interesting training sessions, filled not only with professional knowledge, but above all with practical tasks and exercises. The topics of the workshop were highly relevant to many of our club members in view of their own management activities, and this was also reflected in the interest and involvement of participants in the group work.

However, participants had varying levels of knowledge of the individual parts of the workshop. While some of the participants were familiar with the concepts of Agile or corporate culture, including from working in their own companies, others were familiar with many of the terms in the most general way. For this very reason, a very interesting and lively discussion took place. The inviting atmosphere at the cottage, combined with an attractive view of the Minsk Sea, contributed to a good mood among the participants and encouraged informal communication as planned.

The workshop was followed by a short tour around the Robinson Club grounds, and the evening was rounded off with a barbecue dinner. Thus, the dinner, which could also be attended by family members of the workshop participants, was another good opportunity to informally discuss what we heard and share our own experiences in the field.

The certainly positive feedback from our members on this event clearly showed that this format fits the needs of our members very well and is accordingly a success. We will therefore continue to offer the same relevant and practical topics in a similarly practical and engagingly communicative format.

Photo impressions of the workshop can be found in the gallery, and the trainers’ presentations are available to club members in the private section of our website.

From decentralisation to centralisation. From blockchain to the cloud.

Theme “Blockchain: Fundamentals and Applications in Economics” ended.

 

At our Club Evening on 7 March we had the opportunity to welcome not only many club members but also quite a few guests. In particular, we were delighted to see representatives of large German companies: Michael Sargsyan, Director of Zeppelin Weissrusland, and Rifat Čiček, Regional Manager for CIS countries at Kühne&Nagel.

A large number of participants was probably also due to the very topic of the evening, which aroused great interest among those present. The March club evening was dedicated to current trends in the development of technology and its supporting public institutions. The topic of the evening was digital economy development, in particular, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, as well as the legal framework conditions in Belarus, especially the Presidential Decree No 8, which should facilitate further development of the said technologies in the country.

As an introduction to the topic, Hovsep Voskanyan, Head of Commerzbank Representative Office and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Club, outlined the principles of blockchain and cryptocurrency technology, with a special emphasis on the consequences of these technological developments for the financial sector.

The main speaker of the evening was Veronika Pavlovskaya, a lawyer at our Club member company Arzinger&Partners. She presented an overview of current opportunities and expected trends in the IT business, as well as in the digitalization of the Belarusian economy: Veronika told about the Hi-Tech Park and the Great Stone Industrial Park, about the current Decree No 8, and covered the current state of legislation in the practice of cryptocurrencies, tokens, and ICO in Belarus. The presentation found a lively response from the participants of the evening, which was reflected in numerous questions. The presentation showed great opportunities, but also highlighted many aspects that still exist in the technological, and above all, legal sphere, which need to be thoroughly worked out. It also became clear that the time frame of the Club Evening was unlikely to be sufficient to cover the topic in any depth. That is why we are particularly excited about the upcoming blockchain workshop, where the guest speaker Andrey Lankin from Wargaming will be taking a closer look at this new technological trend.