ICT Standardisation Observatory and Support Facility in Europe
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    SMEs Mentorship Programme

    StandICT.eu cares about Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and their role in the ICT standardisation landscape. SMEs are often excluded from standardisation processes due to the lack of awareness, time, or financial means to strategise this important strand of activities. Yet, SMEs represent 99% of businesses across the European Union. This poses serious issues of inclusiveness and standard suitability. StandICT.eu addresses this challenge through dedicated support measures.

    SME Mentorship Programme

    StandICT.eu has launched a mentorship programme to walk SME experts who benefit from the StandICT.eu support through the ICT standardisation ecosystem. More experienced experts (and notably returning StandICT.eu fellows) are given the possibility to be voluntarily put in contact with new fellows, matching their areas of expertise. This one-to-one mentorship programme aims to enable new experts, who come from SMEs, to benefit from tips and advice from more experienced StandICT.eu fellows. This also gives the possibility to experienced standardisers to diffuse their knowledge to a new generation of European experts, and enable the European Union to keep a strong standardisation knowledge base for the years ahead.

    Standards Upskilling

    Standardisation training and awareness-raising should go beyond the sole university level, and purpose to integrate the workplace as well. A strong focus on life-long learning is paramount towards a successful European standards education strategy. Skills development within companies should concern all employees – not just IT experts, but also top-management levels. SMEs are no exception to this. Their employees should have a broad understanding of standardisation tenets. StandICT.eu addresses this issue through different means:

    • The organisation of SME leadership workshops, whereby SME experts leading work in Standards Developing Organisations come in to present and discuss the nature of their roles with SMEs not yet engaged in standardisation workstreams, and encourage them to actively participate in standardisation work.   
    • Guiding SMEs towards the training modules developed by StandICT.eu, and encouraging their feedback on the accessed training materials in order to enhance them further for a more SME-tailored experience.

    Discover our SME Fellows’ Testimonials

    There is an increasing need to ensure transversal consistency between cybersecurity and artificial intelligence standardisation work. Standards are the path to build trust and provide confidence that risks are effectively managed, through compliance to these and when required also certification. This is all the more important for SMEs such as mine, and other SMEs I work for.

    François Lorek

    - François Lorek -

    TRAX Solutions | France

    Big Earth Data are a critical asset for understanding and managing our planet. A tsunami of data has to continuously be stored, extracted and analysed by experts. All these need to have the same understanding of the data, requiring clear concepts and guidelines. Thanks to StandICT.eu2026, I was able to work on the development of a datacube standard. This will contribute to a better understanding of the data and, ultimately, of our planet.

    Peter Baumann

    - Peter Baumann -

    rasdaman GmbH | Germany

    Quantum Computing is often presented as one of the most promising and disruptive technologies of the 21st century. Harnessing it from research to market starts with standardisation work. StandICT.eu2026 was able to support my standardisation efforts in the field of quantum, and by those means also bolster my company’s knowledge at the technical level.

    Angie Qarry

    - Angie Qarry -

    QDeepTech | Austria

    My company essentially works around Smart Cities. This requires a strong understanding of architecture standards, notably on IoT. StandICT.eu2026 effectively supported my work at ISO/IEC – helping not only my company’s broader activities, but also feeding into the European Commission’s own priorities

    Antonio Kung

    - Antonio Kung -

    Trialog | France