Meeting the changing conditions following the covid-19 pandemic

The Capacity Development “Meeting the changing conditions following the Covid-19 pandemic” was one of the workshops developed in the framework of the 50th anniversary of WAITRO. It took place on October 28, 2020, in an online format.

The WAITRO Secretariat was committed to integrating our members and their capacities as much as possible into our WAITRO:// 50 Virtual Innovation Summit. Attending the wishes of WAITRO Members to actively shape the Virtual Innovation Summit, a Call open was announced to all members who were interested in sharing their expertise to host their own online capacity development workshop during the event.

The Capacity Development “Meeting the changing conditions following the Covid-19 pandemic” was the second virtual workshop of the Summit. It was organized by the Danish Technological Institute (DTI).

Considering the way all businesses and RTOs have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the facilitator, Knud Erik Hilding-Hamann, introduced methods to unlock new potentials for RTOs. He discussed how to support business affected by the actual crisis either on site or remotely. Some of the topics specifically addressed were: lack of Covid -19 protection supplies, dramatically reduced demand in key markets, new restrictions, and other issues.

To gain a better understanding of the challenges that WAITRO members were facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey was conducted before the workshop. Based on the results, a Q&A session was designed to best address the needs articulated by members.

A valuable outcome of this workshop, including the survey, was the report made by Knud Erik Hilding-Hamann (DTI), together with the WAITRO Secretariat. One of the most outstanding findings was that even if WAITRO members had experienced difficulties regarding sales in certain markets and acquisition of new clients, many of them had been able to deal with the pandemic restrictions and satisfy their needs of supply chains through public or private partnerships, clearly showing the resilience of the WAITRO membership.