The third Conversation festival LAMPA festival took place from June 30 – July 1, 2017, in Cēsis and gathered over 10 000 participants. Two hundred festival events attracted a diverse audience – musicians, artists, doctors, ministers, politicians, academicians, journalists, entrepreneurs and many others.

The Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia has been participating in Latvian democracy festival LAMPA for three consecutive years. In this year we brought to the festival two different topics and events: 

A panel discussion "Working together" on bio-economy and green living in Northern Europe and Latvia with bio-economy experts from Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Kristaps Ročāns, Project Manager at the High Added Value and Healthy Food Cluster (Latvia), was joined on the big LAMPA stage by Anne-Mette S. Langvald, Chief Consultant from the Central Denmark Region; Kari Poikela, Cluster Manager from the Kemi Technology Park (Finland), and Stig Bang-Andersen, Adviser on EU Law, Policy and EEA Advisor from Norway. The discussion concentrated on bioeconomy and green living in Northern Europe and Latvia and featured three cases from the Nordic countries and one case from Latvia in the field of bioeconomy, illustrating why working together and collaboration matters.

An interactive test "Measure your own Madia Literacy!" highlighted various aspects of media literacy skills in modern society and our daily lives. 817 visitors of the Conversation Festival LAMPA tested their media competence through various media-related situations and answering predesigned questions. The results of this activity, as well as the research conducted by the Latvian Ministry of Culture, proved that the average level of understanding of such media literacy concepts as propaganda, fake news, misinformation, commercials etc. is not optimal and that many people still lack solid basic knowledge thereof.