3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
The smart economy concept reconciles the economy with the principles of sustainability
through the use of ICT for inclusive growth, economic diversification and social empowerment.
ICT is used to enhance quality, performance and interactivity of services, to reduce fixed costs,
decrease ecological footprint, and improve connectivity between users.
Smart economy development, through the increasing use of the Internet of Things (IoT
platform), generates a high quantity of data requiring an extensive infrastructure, resilient
information highways, data centers, as well as high-performing computing power, allowing realtime
exploitation of data.
Innovation is the key to a smart interconnected economy: new ideas help to generate economic
activity as well as to attract new businesses and new workers. The Internet of Things society
fosters deep collaboration in ever-expanding webs, enabling traditional industries and new
start-up entrepreneurial enterprises to transition from the conventional adversarial relations in
traditional markets to shared open-source relations on a burgeoning commons. Working
collaboratively to solve problems and create new opportunities is crucial to a thriving smart
economy. Through connectivity, the collaboration models are redefined.
Digital technologies play a central role in value creation in the economy and bring a radical
transformation to research and development and to the production and distribution of goods
and services. Areas like Big Data, the Internet of Things, and automatization processes offer
great opportunities for every sector and industry.
Luxembourg’s Smart Economy working group has identified four critical areas that underline its
current strengths and weaknesses:
State of the art ICT infrastructure; Luxembourg is well-positioned according to latest
statistics.
Business' integration of digital technologies; Luxembourg is weak compared to the EU
average, especially as regards SME’s.
ICT Skills; Luxembourg lacks the expertise to deploy the digital revolution and the
educational system is not positioned to overcome the digital skills gap.
Framework conditions that stimulate the uptake of new technologies; Luxembourg is
generally perceived as “business friendly” but room for manoeuvre is shrinking and
competition is strong.
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