Repairing for Growth: Guiding SMEs through the Right to Repair Directive and Standards
SPEAKERS
Gunilla ALMGREN
President, Small Business Standards
Owner/manager, REGAB Reglerarmatur AB
Gunilla Almgren was appointed as Small Business Standards’ President when the association was created in December 2013. A sanitary fittings entrepreneur, she runs a fairly typical, expanding micro-business with three employees and business contacts all over Europe. Previously, she has been President of SMEunited (formerly UEAPME), the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, and Vice-President of the Board of Företagarna, the Swedish Federation of Private Enterprises. An entrepreneur at heart, she sits on the boards of several Swedish business-related organisations and private companies.
On top of her professional engagements, Ms Almgren has actively participated in several committees and working groups set up by the European Commission in recent years.
Jennifer BAKER
Better known as Brusselsgeek, Jennifer has been a journalist in print, radio and television for 20 years, the last 10+ specialising in EU policy.
She has worked across a wide range of media, from editing a national daily paper in Malta, to reporting on European affairs for Middle Eastern television, and has a wealth of experience in navigating the political quagmire of the EU. As well as an address book packed with insider sources and contacts in Brussels, Jennifer is skilled at translating EU policy-speak into understandable English.
Regularly listed as one of the top influencers in the EU bubble, Jennifer was awarded #1 Tech Influencer 2019 by ZN, was listed by Politico as one of the Top 20 Women Shaping Brussels in 2017, and was named by Onalytica as one of the world’s Top 100 Influencers on Data Security 2016 . She is also a GLG expert Council Member providing advice on EU Policy, and was an original member of the Expert Council of the Good Technology Collective .
Jennifer regularly features as an EU expert on BBC radio, Euronews, SkyNews and others, and hosts Brussels’ must-watch weekly roundup show TOTW for Euractiv. She has written for some of the biggest names in media, including ArsTechnica, Computerweekly, TheNextWeb, and The Register.
Marco BARBAGELATA
Digital Transformation Officer, STAMTECH
Marco Barbagelata is STAM’s Digital Transformation Officer as well as a board member of the company. After his Bachelor of Science in Telecommunications Engineering and a double masters in Robotics Engineering and Advanced Robotics he worked as an ICT Specialist for the Italian energy sector.
In 2016 he joined STAM as a Robotics Project Engineer, quickly growing into a management position thanks to a Fulbright BEST scholarship in Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation that led him to work as a consultant with the key tech players of Silicon Valley. He founded the company’s Digital Solutions Business Area in 2020.
Peter BROERTJES
Machinery and Equipment policy, DG GROW, European Commission
Peter Broertjes studied automotive engineering at HAN University in the Netherlands. He worked for a total of 25 years in the automotive field, on vehicle type-approval, of which 13 years at the European Commission in the Automotive and Mobility Unit. He dealt in particular with the overhaul of the type-approval and market surveillance rules in response to the dieselgate scandal. After that, he was responsible for the initiative that introduced a range of new advanced vehicle safety features on all new cars, vans, trucks and buses, conservatively estimated to save over 25,000 lives over the coming decade.
Since the start of 2022, Peter uses his broad experience for the machinery sector as Policy Officer at the European Commission’s DG GROW H.2 Machinery & Equipment Unit. New milestones include the finalisation of the new Machinery Regulation and its ongoing implementation, ensuring that it can be successfully applied when the updated legislation becomes mandatory for all machinery manufacturers. The new legislation covers emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and cyber-safety linked to autonomous machinery.
Amelie BUSS (BANHART)
Project Coordinator, Smart Manufacturing, DIN
Amelie Buss is half German half British. Holding a chemistry background, Ms Buss managed ISO, CEN and DIN standards committees for more than five years as a Senior Project Manager.
She has also been active in Additive Manufacturing since 2019. Ms Buss then became the Project Coordinator for Smart Manufacturing at DIN where she was responsible with DKE Project Manager Marvin Böll, for the German Standardization Roadmap on Industry 4.0.
Gwenole COZIGOU
Director, DG GROW in charge of construction, engineering industries and standardisation, European Commission
An economist by training, Mr Gwen COZIGOU has been an official in the European Commission since 1985 in the fields of Enterprise and Industrial Policy and of External Relations.
Since December 2008, he has been Director in DG GROW, in charge of competitiveness issues and EU internal market legislation for several industrial sectors, including REACH, medical devices, raw materials.
He is currently in charge of construction, engineering industries and standardisation.
Franck GAMBELLI
Adviser, UIMM
Franck Gambelli was trained as a business lawyer at the Sorbonne before joining the Fédération des industries mécaniques, where he was legal director until 2013. In this capacity, he wrote the first guide to the machinery directive, which served as the basis for the Commission’s guide. From 2003 to 2023 he was the Health-Environment-CSR Legal Director of the “Union des industries et métiers de la métallurgie” (UIMM). He is currently an advisor to the UIMM, which he represents in several European working groups.
He was Chairman of the French Social Security occupational accident branch from 2005 to 2014, a member of the Luxembourg Advisory Committee on Occupational Health, and a director of several French environmental, health and safety institutions: INERIS, ANSES, ANACT and COFRAC.
Author of several specialist works on technical law: “Le guide de l’environnement des entreprises industrielles”, “La portée juridique des normes”, “les notices d’instruction”: “le contrat d’entreprise industriel”; “la réglementation européenne des produits”: “Le guide de la directive machines”, “Le guide de la sous-traitance” “integrating scientific expertise in regulations” “Legal aspects of standardization in the Members States of the EC and EFRA”.
Jochen HAENISCH
Director Aeronautics, Space and Defence, Jotne
Jochen Haenisch, Jotne, leads the Aeronautics, Defence and Space business area in Jotne. He has contributed to and managed many industrial data interoperability implementations applying various STEP standards including ISO 10303-209 (Multidisciplinary analysis and design), ISO 10303-239 (Product LifeCycle Support, PLCS) and ISO 10303-242 (Managed model-based 3D engineering). In 1990 he entered into the ISO Subcommittee for Industrial Data, ISO/TC 184/SC 4, the home of STEP. He regularly attends their plenary meetings as head of delegation for Norway. Currently, he is deputy convenor of WG12, Common Resources.
Maitane OLABARRIA
Secretary General, Small Business Standards
Maitane Olabarria has nearly 20 years of experience in European affairs and standardisation. From 2006 to 2017, she worked for the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) as Programme Manager in the Standards Department. At CEN, she was responsible for standardisation activities in the areas of services, bio-based products, (bio)fuels and energy management. She also has more than six years of experience working for different European associations in the areas of distance selling and e-commerce (EMOTA), and in the machine tool and manufacturing technologies sector (CECIMO).
In January 2020, Ms Olabarria was appointed Secretary General of Small Business Standards, the European association representing the interests of small and medium size companies in standardisation at the European and international levels.
Alberto RUIZ RODRÍGUEZ
Industry Attaché, Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU
Alberto RUIZ RODRÍGUEZ has been Industry Counsellor at the Spanish Permanent Representation to the European Union since September 2018. He is the current Chair of the Working Parties on Industry and Technical Harmonisation at the Council of the European Union,² where he leads the negotiations of the Net Zero Industry Act, Euro 7 and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation.
Prior to joining the Spanish Permanent Representation to the European Union, he worked as a technical advisor in the Spanish public administration, in the State Secretariats for Energy and Trade, where he was dealing with EU and international affairs in the fields of energy efficiency and export credits.
He holds an Industrial Engineering double degree from Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, in Spain and École Centrale Paris, in France. He also graduated in Law at the Spanish Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), with the award for the best academic record.
Dr. Georg SCHLICK
Head of Additive Manufacturing - Metal and Multi-material, Fraunhofer IGCV
Dr. Georg Schlick is head of the department Additive Manufacturing – Metal and Multi-Material at Fraunhofer IGCV in Augsburg. His professional career has been dedicated to additive manufacturing since 2012. Between 2012 and 2015 he worked for MTU Aero Engines AG in the field of hard to weld materials. In January 2016, he joined Fraunhofer. Standardisation and training have been a relevant part of his daily business since then. One of the most relevant projects in this area was VDI Guideline 3405 Part 6.1 where he was leading the corresponding focus group.
Thomas SØLUND
CTO & Co-founder, Spin Robotics
Thomas Sølund has more than 10 years of experience in the robotics industry. Before founding Spin Robotics, one of the leading end-of-arm tool producers for robot assembly applications, he was a consultant, software developer, researcher, and team leader at the Danish RTO – Danish Technological Institute in Odense. In 2016 he submitted his PhD in Computer Vision, Object Recognition and Pose Estimation. His AI experience and skills are mainly built in the area of computer vision.
Mr Sølund holds a B.Sc. in electronic engineering (2009, SDU) and M.Sc. in Robot Systems Engineering (2011, SDU) and an Industrial PhD degree (2016, DTU).
Véronique WILLEMS
Secretary General, SMEunited
Véronique Willems is representing Crafts and SMEs in Europe as the Secretary General of SMEunited (formerly known as UEAPME) since January 2017.
Beforehand and as from 2009, she was the Head of European affairs at UNIZO (SMEunited Belgian member organisation) and was responsible for advocacy on policies affecting SMEs at EU-level.
In January 2016, she was nominated deputy to the SME-representative for Belgium at the European Economic and Social Committee.
Ms Willems started her career at UNIZO in 1999 as Policy Officer in charge of education, training and SME counselling and went on to work at the regional office (Vlaams-Brabant & Brussel) as responsible for advocacy at regional level, mentorship programs and individual counselling for entrepreneurs.
Ms Willems holds a Law degree from Vrije Universiteit Brussels and a Master’s Degree in Commercial sciences / Business management from VLEKHO Brussels.
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