Germany ‘behind on digitisation’

A group of professors and industry bosses has used Germany’s 10th national IT summit to push for government action on digital transformation.

The IT summit, held in Saarbrücken on 16 and 17 November, focused on advances in digital education. Ahead of the summit, two university professors and five industry bosses published a critical eight-page pamphlet called the Saarbrücken Manifesto.

The manifesto said that since digitisation became a national priority at the first IT summit a decade ago, the German government had not done enough to bring about the necessary changes. A "push towards digitisation through policy, the economy and society" is needed, the authors of the document said.