The Rise of the Platform Economy in South East and Eastern Europe: What Does the Future Hold?
With Ukraine, Serbia and Romania representing the leading providers of digital platform workers in Europe and beyond, eastern and south-eastern Europe deserve a close look within the context of the future of work and gig economy. Yet, the different effects of platformization on the economies and societies in these European regions have not been thoroughly examined nor fully understood.
To fill this gap, the Public Policy Center has organised a regional edition of the conference in Novi Sad which opened a discussions about the anticipated impacts of the platform economy on workers, businesses, and societies in these parts of Europe. The conference was opened by the Head of Operations II of the EU Delegation to Serbia. The Novi Sad conference offered a curated program with an excellent line-up of speakers, amongst them academics, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial blockbusters, union organizers, and platform workers. Speakers included Ionut Lacusta, Head of Public Policy, EEMEA & EU Affairs at Glovo; Martin Risak, Professor at the University of Vienna and a leading European expert in labor law and platform economy legislation; Sem Fabrizi, Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia (tbc); Branka Andjelkovic, Co-founder, Public Policy Research Center; Olga Chesalina, Senior Researcher and Country Expert for Russia and Eastern Europe at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, Germany; Jan Drahokoupil and Agnieszka Piasna, Senior Researchers at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI); Darko Vidic, Founder and CEO, Green Design Ltd. (Geelancer.com); Joanne Gouaux, CEO, Morning Angel Communications and a Social Entrepreneur; Sreten Vranic, Head of Social Banking, Erste Bank; Zachary Kilhoffer, Researcher in the Jobs and Skills Unit, Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS); Carsten Vollrath, CEO, Swiss IPG Partners Group and Nicolas Friederici, Researcher, Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG); Oxford Internet Institute among others.
Reshaping Work was born in 2016 as a non-profit initiative coming from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with the idea to gather digital enthusiasts eager to unpack the nature of the platform economy and assess its impact on the world of business and work. In 2018, the event overgrew its capacity to host all interested parties and prompted RW founders to explore the possibility to create regional partnerships and develop sister conferences covering Scandinavia, Spain, and South-Eastern Europe and Eastern Europe.
The event took place on the 27th and 28th of February 2020 at the Rectorate Building of the University of Novi Sad, with an art exhibition opening as a prelude to the conference on the 26th of February at Svilara Cultural Station.