Four new professionals and a trainee will reinforce our Projects and Communications/IT departments. Welcome Fulin, Ieva, Silvia, Adrian, and James!

While tech giants spend record amounts on lobbying in Brussels, associations that represent the interests of small and medium enterprises are few and far between. Nonetheless, recognition of the importance of SMEs and their representative organisations is growing.

Thus, DIGITAL SME is excited to add four new staff members to our Brussels secretariat! The newest additions to the team will infuse the Alliance with fresh blood and much-needed capacities to cover new projects, communication, and an ambitious, novel web architecture.

Fulin Low

Hailing from far-away Singapore, Fulin has previously worked in countries such as Costa Rica, Japan and France. After gathering experience in industries as diverse as education, food manufacturing, and media literacy, the bubbly and creative young professional has found her passion in digital communication. Fulin, who speaks Chinese, English, French, and Japanese, will lift DIGITAL SME’s outreach and visibility efforts to the next level as the new Communications Officer.

Ieva Spudyte

Originally from Lithuania, Ieva has lived in Germany and France where she gained an education and gathering experience in the fields of public policy and project management. In addition to her native Lithuanian, Ieva speaks English and German. She is passionate about innovation and bringing higher education, including digital skills, to Europeans of all backgrounds. At DIGITAL SME, she will be managing projects in the areas of digital skills and smart cities as a new Junior Project Manager. 

Ionel-Adrian Becheanu

With Ionel-Adrian, who goes by his second name, DIGITAL SME gains a veteran IT Specialist as a motor for our own digital transformation. The self-starting tinkerer originally hails from Romania, where he worked in telecommunication for twenty years after receiving a Master’s in electrical engineering. After starting an autodidactic journey in programming, he now specialises in the development of web-based applications. Adrian settled in Flanders with his family about a year ago and has since picked up conversational Dutch and French in addition to English and his native Romanian.

James Philpot

A graduate in Politics and International Relations, the Brit James Philpot started his European projects career for a small consultancy, building consortia and offering project management support for clients in the education and culture sector. After a stint at the European Organisation for Security, where he coordinated the Cybersecurity Working Group, the amateur-soccer enthusiast is now DIGITAL SME’s new Project Manager for cybersecurity and data projects. In this function, he contributes to policy and standardisation issues.

Silvia Vinci

In addition to the four permanent staff members, DIGITAL SME welcomes Silvia Vinci as our newest Projects Trainee. The double-degree student of International Relations and European Studies originally hails from Italy but has come to Brussels to learn more about digital politics. Silvia is passionate about justice and human rights and wants to work with digital tools to connect people and make the world a better place. At DIGITAL SME, she will deepen her projects knowledge and learn practical skills related to European policymaking.

DIGITAL SME is still hiring!

With these new additions, our Brussels secretariat is growing in strength and numbers—but we are not done yet. At the moment, DIGITAL SME is looking for an early stage PhD researcher on the ethical and legal implications of artificial intelligence. As part of a new European project, the researcher will be working at DIGITAL SME while simultaneously being enrolled in a PhD programme at the Technological University Dublin.

In addition, we are accepting applications for communications and policy trainees who are eligible for Erasmus+ funding on a rolling basis! If you care about this increasingly digital, global society we live in, and about making it more open, transparent, and fair, DIGITAL SME is the right place for you. At a time when big tech lobbying in Brussels is evidently out of control, you can be sure that we will always be a voice for fairness, sustainability, and competition in the digital economy!