This year Tallinn (Estonia) played host to the 29th IASP World Conference on Science and Technology Parks and it was another resounding success as it continues to prove its longevity and popularity among STP professionals.

Organised by Tehnopol, the conference was opened on the 18th June by the IASP International President Mauricio Guedes, who was joined at the opening ceremony by Juhan Parts, the Estonian Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications and a number of IASP representatives.

The theme of the conference was Serving the companies and the innovation community and over 500 delegates from more than 50 countries attended to discuss how STPs are changing structurally to become increasingly complex structures for professional innovation support.

In total 73 people spoke throughout the 16 conference sessions. Speakers included Kevin Johns (City of Austin, USA), Martine Durand (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France), Maive Rute (European Commission) and Nicholas Brooke (Professional Property Services Limited and Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks, Hong Kong).

Additionally, the President of Estonia, His Excellency Toomas Hendrik Ilves, delivered a highly insightful speech at the closing session.

Last years successful Knowledge Camp format was retained and a number of lively debates took place around the theme Science/Technology Parks as service environments for business incubation and acceleration. The interactivity of these sessions proved again to be a great hit. A new and more dynamic Pitch session format was also introduced at this conference and raised great interest and enthusiasm for its agility and lively development, allowing many speakers to share condensed knowledge snippets at exhilarating speed.

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The social events and aspects of the conference were also a highlight, giving those in attendance networking opportunities as well as a chance to relax the gala dinner being the perfect example of this.

During the closing ceremony the organisers handed the IASP conference flag to Porto Digital, marking their official role as organisers of next years IASP World Conference in Recife (Brazil) between 13th and 16th October 2013.

We would like to thank our colleagues at Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol for hosting a wonderful IASP event and we look forward to seeing you all in Recife for the 2013 IASP World Conference!

Source: IASP newsletter