REVIEW OF THE MCIT FORUM 2022

This year's MCiT Forum - a digital conference, organized by the Master students Management, Communication & IT, was a great success. Numerous participants attended the event on June 1. The motto "DIGITAL BUSINESS IN ASIA - HOW IS DIGITAL BUSINESS CONDUCTED IN ASIA?" was considered in 7 talks, by a total of 9 international speakers from different points of view.

After the welcome by Master student Yiting Jiang and the official kick-off by Head of Department and Studies Prof. Dr. Peter J. Mirski, keynote speaker Emanuela Hanes opened this year's forum. Ms. Hanes is China Cooperation and Strategy Expert and Strategy Consultant, Trainer. In her presentation she talked about cultural differences between China and the German speaking countries. In particular, she addressed the aspects of agility and perfection, adaptability and stagnation. With examples of successful Chinese companies such as WeChat, Tencent and Ping'An, she showed how traditional differences can influence the success of companies and how companies can use cultural characteristics to their advantage. The Western, as well as the Asian side, can still learn from each other to get the best out of both cultures. While China is known for its adaptability and spontaneity, the German culture is characterized by values such as structure and accuracy.

MCiT alumnus Philipp Wastian points out that the population in China tends to use smartphones more often than desktop PCs. Mr. Wastian works at Satispay, a mobile payment company. In his presentation, he mentioned that Satispay deals directly with the merchant, which brings the advantage of greater flexibility. In his opinion, Europe still shows a need to catch up in the area of mobile payment. Consequently, there is great potential, which the company Satispay wants to exploit.

MCiT Master student Daniela Borowsky talked about her semester abroad at the MCiT partner university National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and the smart solutions in Taiwan. In addition to automated "coffee robots" and the "Easy Card", which can be used to make contactless payments at many providers, she emphasized "digital democracy" in particular. With the help of Audrey Tang, who has held the office of Taiwan's digital minister since 2016, Taiwan has managed to increase transparency vis-à-vis the population as well as the right to have a say in the use of digital options such as pol.is and sandbox laws.

Otto Schell provided the audience with a better understanding of the social digital Asian structures in the digital context. The comparison between Europe and Asia shows that, in his opinion, there is still a lot to change in Europe. With the help of future-oriented thinking, it is possible to do business in a sustainable and socially just way.

Associate Prof. Xiaodan Yu gave interesting insights into China's national strategic plan and the development of the digital economy. In the future, the focus is to be directed from quantity to quality. This concerns the focus areas "Society", "Green Economy" and "Technology". For example, urban agglomerations are to be brought into efficient green harmony, or digital opportunities are to be used for greater environmental protection.

MCiT Bachelor student Simon Köllemann studied online for 1 semester at MCiT partner university Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. In his talk, Mr. Köllemann addressed digitalization and privacy in Singapore. He told that on a relatively small area, which is only about seven times the size of Innsbruck, about 90,000 cameras are mounted. In addition, the location of the population is constantly monitored. The Singapore government believes that protection from the corona virus is more important than data protection. The population even agreed with the government on this point with the help of a referendum.

Prof. Holger Briel Dean at United International College in Guangdong, China went into detail about Asian futurism and Chinese science fiction in his presentation. In doing so, he presented various literary works.

Another highlight was the panel discussion, which took place on site at MCI and was streamed live. During this, Prof. Deepak Khazanchi and Prof. Wei Manske-Wang spoke on the topic "Outsourcing digital business to Asia - Still an opportunity?". The discussion was moderated by Prof. Dr. Peter J. Mirski. Due to the different cultural backgrounds of the speakers, a controversial discussion on the topic came up. For example, it was about finding the most suitable place for software development and hardware manufacturing and how future division of labor could be structured.

The MCiT Forum 2022 provided a suitable setting for interesting discussions and an inspiring exchange on the business world in Asia. The thanks was a very positive response from the audience. A special thanks goes to the speakers and the MCiT Department as organizer. The intensive, months-long preparation has thus paid off in full for the MCiT Master students. We are already looking forward to seeing you again at the MCiT Forum 2023!