The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized an Interactive Session with His Excellency Freddy Svane, Ambassador of The Kingdom of Denmark to India on 18th February 2021 at The Bengal Chamber premises. 

His Excellency graced the session along with Mr. Steen Malthe Hansen, Head of Political and Economic Section, Royal Danish Embassy in India; Ms. Smita Bajoria, Honorary Consul General, Royal Danish Consulate, Kolkata; Mr. Deb A Mukherjee , President, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Mr. Subhodip Ghosh, Director General, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 

The Session was attended by the senior members of the Managing Committee of The Bengal Chamber. 

The programme was commenced with the Formal Welcome Address by Mr. Deb A Mukherjee, President, The Bengal Chamber. Mr. Mukherjee stated that the proposed Urban Regeneration Lab would be based on the concept of a living lab which would perpetuate an inclusive city with characteristics of resilience and equitable. The Chamber would like to engage with the Embassy of Denmark in India for learning and best practices in this area. The Chamber is willing to take up exchange programmes on resource efficiency and other related capacity building with the Embassy to facilitate this mission.

His Excellency, during his address, highlighted the areas in which the collaborations with India may be explored - renewable energy; water; agriculture; technology startups; health tech especially robotics; fintech and urban regeneration. He mentioned that urban living labs are early experimentation gardens, embedded in neighbourhoods and cities in which residence, Governments, private sectors and knowledge institutions interact to design, test and fine-tune social and technical interventions in real life. There has been a growing up take of the living lab method for participatory urban initiatives since, focusing on four key functions, such as experimentation; engagement; co-creation; and learning to help reverse the degeneration of urban settlements and bring about urban regeneration. The Ambassador also mentioned that only 4 percent of water is pushed into distribution network in Denmark is unaccounted due to leaks and other factors where as in most Indian cities it is about 50 per cent. Denmark would love to work with Indian cities to reduce the volume of unaccountable water. His Excellency also stated that he is willing to be associated with the Chamber’s initiative of Vision Bengal 2030 wherein the Chamber looks forward to bring in expertise/technologies and skills of Denmark to implement with the scale of India. 

The programme was followed by vibrant interactive session with the members of the Chamber.