DigiMeet 2024 – Streamlined Digital Business Boosts Efficiency and Reduces Risks
DigiMeet, our the annual digital event took place last week for the fourth consecutive year. The event, themed "Digital Horizons in Light of Regulation," offered participants a presentation of best practices and a panel discussion titled Digital Future: Artificial Intelligence and Regulatory Challenges.
The event began with an opening address by our CEO, Simona Kogovšek, who emphasized that our aim is to raise awareness, educate, and share practices in business digitalization. This, she explained, is the most effective way to foster digital transformation in companies and promote awareness of the positive effects of digitalization.
Monday’s session, dedicated to HR professionals, featured Nataša Centa, an expert in digitalizing HR processes, who, alongside guest speaker Maja Skorupan, an attorney from the law firm Senica & Partnerji, discussed the legal aspects of digital document validity and accessibility in HR. They addressed how digital documents and process digitalization can support the transition to a digitalized HR department. Maja Skorupan shared insights from her extensive experience, advising on how to carry out recruitment processes correctly and in compliance with the law. Nataša Centa illustrated these points with practical examples, demonstrating the management of HR documentation and employee files within the InDoc EDGE document management system.
Tuesday's DigiMeet session was led by Anton Gazvoda, a business digitalization expert, joined by guest speaker Sonja Šrubar Lovšin, Director of Real Estate Management and Central Procurement at OTP Bank. In a presentation titled Digital Contract Management: Regulatory Requirements and Practices, Sonja shared the challenges the bank faced in contract management, the compliance standards set by EBA and DORA, and the benefits that the InDoc EDGE document management system has brought to contract administration.
Sonja Šrubar Lovšin stated: "At the bank, we see significant advantages in maintaining a digital contract register, which we aim to implement with every integration or merger. All active contracts are always transferred to an e-register, avoiding the duplication of physical archiving. We digitize contracts, tag them with metadata, and add them to the register so that everything is centralized and easily accessible. Our experience has shown that a ‘Big Bang’ approach, implementing everything at once, is most effective"
On Wednesday, Miha Škrabar, Product Manager for Supporting Services, and his guest, Sandra Jerebic from the Quality Department at Jesenice General Hospital, discussed ISO Document Management best practice. Sandra detailed the state before and after introducing the InDoc EDGE solution for managing ISO documentation, touching on how they now also track discrepancies within the document system. Miha concluded the session with a live demonstration of ISO documentation management in a demo environment.
Sandra Jerebic shared that two years ago, they implemented the ISO documentation management system due to a high volume of documents. Initially, there was resistance from employees, but they quickly addressed this through training, knowledge transfer, and consistent use of the solution. Looking back, she noted, “We realize now that our initial concerns were unnecessary, and the system has greatly simplified our document management today.”
We concluded DigiMeet 2024 with Thursday’s panel discussion on The Digital Future: Artificial Intelligence and Regulatory Challenges, moderated by Radio Slovenia journalist Matej Praprotnik. The panel featured Dr. Blaž Zupan, professor at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana, Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič, founder and director of the Institute for Open Data and Intellectual Property (ODIPI), and Grega Vozel, a lawyer and Data Protection Officer (DPO) for external clients at Mikrocop. The panelists each shared their perspectives on the need for society to carefully accept and regulate the development, deployment, and use of artificial intelligence (AI), unanimously agreeing on the importance of educating young people about AI, machine learning, and data usage from an early age.
Dr. Blaž Zupan argued that the EU’s proposed AI Act—a 450-page regulatory document—covers a technology that very few people understand. He noted that even basic machine learning, which underpins AI, remains largely unfamiliar to the public. Consequently, he considers the AI Act overly complex and unrealistic to expect the public to fully comprehend. As he put it, “We lack basic data literacy.” He emphasized that before AI is effectively regulated and used in personal and business life, foundational knowledge of these technologies is essential.
Grega Vozel stated his belief that companies already complying with GDPR will likely meet about 80% of the requirements of the upcoming AI Act. Just as GDPR requires specific compliance measures, the AI Act will introduce unique conditions that organizations will need to address.
Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič: "We live in Europe, where fundamental freedoms and rights are highly protected." She says that it's a matter of decision for each country or a community like the EU to determine to what extent individual rights will be regulated. Different parts of the world view freedoms differently and act accordingly. Does this mean that the EU will lag behind and lose in the race for economic development compared to others, such as China, where many things are allowed and freedoms aren’t as legally safeguarded? We don’t know. She suggests that other methods might prove to be more successful. However, she raises the question of whether we are ready to trample on the rights of everyone for the sake of making society more efficient by using artificial intelligence without any regulation.
Watch DigiMeet 2024 recordings (Slovene only).
