3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
STATE OF PLAY AND LUXEMBOURG VISION
Based on deep collaboration between the Luxembourg Working Group and TIR Consulting
Group LLC, “Smart Economy” should be approached as a de-siloed META-pillar, which brings
together communication, energy, and mobility in a seamless infrastructure made up of the
Communication Internet, the Renewable Energy Internet and the automated GPS and driverless
Mobility Internet in a super Internet that will fundamentally change the way Luxembourg
manages, powers, and moves economic activity across its myriad value chains. Moreover, this
Meta-Pillar should be leveraged to define and further develop a specific core strategic vision
that transcends and integrates not only the five Smart Economy themes proposed by the
Luxembourg Smart Economy Working Group but also the other sub-pillars in the evolving
Luxembourg Third Industrial Revolution Strategy Study.
According to Townsend and Lorimer, digital masterplans are most successful when they aspire
to be visionary. 291 Vision, in this context, is understood not so much as a detailed blueprint but
as an overarching theme that enables an effective implementation of the masterplan over time
and across changing stakeholders and public-private partnerships (governments, CEOs and
change of transition team leaders).
Luxembourg has considerable assets and knowhow when it comes to broadband, WiFi and
specialized Telecom infrastructure, FinTech, EU-regulatory leverage through local EU
institutions and offices, legacy in registration and incorporation of legal private and business
entities for global customers, taxation and accounting know-how, scaled “trust economy,” and
several small scale e-Administration pilot projects.
Recognizing the value of data flows, many locations are trying to create the “next Silicon
Valley.” But innovation is notoriously hard to orchestrate—and that is not the only way to
participate in the digital global economy. “Our experience shows that countries benefit from
receiving cross-border digital flows as well as producing them. In other words, countries do not
need to transform themselves into digital content or platform producers to benefit from global
data flows.” 292
It is therefore our advice to formulate one core strategic vision that builds upon Luxembourg’s
existing assets as described above, positioning Luxembourg both as a producer and as a
291 Digital Master Planning: An Emerging Strategic Practice in Global Cities, NYU Marron Institute of Urban
Management, June 2015.
292 http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/McKinsey%20Digital/Our%20Insights/Dig
ital%20globalization%20The%20new%20era%20of%20global%20flows/MGI-Digital-globalization-Full-report.ashx
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