Third successful edition of InnovatingNL in The Hague

Around 100 delegates, executives and senior staff from different national and international organisations were present.

Several questions were covered during the event, such as:

• How do I generate maximum value from all that data?
• Can I depend on connectivity?
• Is the existing system of property rights sufficient, or do we need new protection of value?
• Which are the impediments from IP, Regulatory, Data Protection, Competition and Liability perspective?
• Where do the business opportunities lie?

All of these issues were discussed during interactive parallel sessions, and were supported by red or green voting cards and throwable microphones which stimulated audience engagement in an innovative way.

Evelyn Tjon-En-Fa and Marc van Wijngaarden held a welcome speech. The keynote speaker was TomTom's George de Boer, Lead of Connected Car Initiatives. 

The event was then split into two parallel sessions; one covered the topic Connecting everything, recording everything and the other one was about Monetizing on Data. Feyo Sickinghe and Jorn van Steenis were the moderators for the two parallel sessions and there were three business experts present: TomTom's George de Boer, Fox-IT's Christian Prickaerts and Baseline's Edoardo Monopoli.

During the Connecting everything, recording everything session, partners Henriette Picot (Germany) and Ronald Hendrikx (UK) gave an overview of the current IoT landscape. Their presentation was followed by partner Marjolein Geus and senior counsel Frank Simons who discussed how the National and European rules and regulations affect the development of connected solutions. The first parallel session was finished by partners Quirine Tjeenk Willink and Evelyn Tjon-En-Fa. They talked about data protection, liability and insurance.

At the other parallel session, on Monetizing on data, IP partner Wouter Pors showcased the options and protection of big data. His presentation was followed by partner Pauline's Kuipers' presentation on the opportunities and threats in the marketplace linked to competition. The second parallel session was ended by associate Berend van der Eijk and counsel Lennart Schüßler (Germany) on data protection and implementing the right solutions and creating the right data protection environment.

After a short break there was a short tips and tricks presentation on how to secure your data from Christian Prickaerts from Fox-IT. Following Christian's session, there was a panel discussion situated against the background of the “Digital Single Market” – the EU’s ambitious initiative to reduce legislative hurdles and make the EU fit for the next ‘digital age’. The panel discussion between our lawyers, industry experts from TomTom, Baseline and Fox-IT, and the attendees closed the day, reflecting on these developments.

After the final panel discussion, the delegates had the opportunity to network and discuss the presentations.

Evelyn Tjon-En-Fa and Marc van Wijngaarden, the initiators of InnovatingNL, commented: "We are very happy with the turnout of the third edition of InnovatingNL. The delegates are getting increasingly familiar with the concept of this event and were very enthusiastic about the breadth and depth of the parallel sessions. We are looking forward to hosting InnovatingNL once again in 2018."

One participant said: "Fun experience tackling interesting questions on IoT".

Another participant commented: "Very inspiring and interesting – also to hear business experiences."

For more information, please contact Evelyn and Marc.