EIFonline

HORIZON 2020: TAKING THE LONG VIEW TOWARDS A MORE COMPETITIVE EUROPE

EIFonline — 07 Feb 2012 10:00:55 +0200

In this talk at the EIF dinner debate on 28 February Robert Madelin urges the audience to consider Horizon 2020 not only in context of present budgetary challenges but also taking the longer view towards future European competitiveness. He pointed out that while everyone tends to see their pet issue as "the" issue, really the bigger question for everyone is what the future Europe will look like. Looking out ahead it would seem that Europe will be faced with much more competition in future. In order to maintain a leading position in terms of innovation, scientific, and industrial excellence there are strategic investments which must be made now. At the same time, the right balance must be struck. Especially in tight economic circumstances the public purse must be handled judiciously and, as Madelin points out, things that are good for commercial interests shouldn't be neutral in terms of societal outcomes.

In astrophysics we find the concept of the gravity well. Basically, the idea is that the minimum amount of energy required to achieve escape velocity is absolutely fixed in relation to the mass of the planet you're trying to leave. Rocket fuel is expensive but unless you put at least this minimal amount on the rocket you'll never achieve orbit. With member states feeling the budgetary squeeze they are (quite understandably) pushing for concomitant reductions in expenditures on the EU level. DG INFSO takes the position that 80 billion is really the minimum investment necessary in order to achieve the ambitious goals of Horizon 2020 and strategically position Europe for future competitiveness.

To hear Robert Madelin's talk, click here.

Professor Gonzalo Le�n speaks both from his experience as a direct participant in EU-funded R&D programmes and also from his experience on the policy side overseeing such programmes. He asserts that past approaches have been fragmented and pushes for a more integrated approach with Horizon 2020. He sees certain societal challenges that can only be addressed through better use of ICT. International research cooperation will be necessary to achieve these goals and the Horizon 2020 framework should allow for flexibility in this area. Overall, he sees Horizon 2020 as it stands as a big improvement over past efforts but suggests that there is still time to improve the framework in some key areas.

To hear Professor Le�n's talk, click here.

Paul Jenkins presents the viewpoint of a commercial partner with extensive experience participating in past EU R&D; BT has been part of FP4, FP5, FP6, & FP7. He gives an overview of several past high-profile research projects. He says that it's not enough to develop innovative solutions without addressing the problem of how to get these innovations fielded in the market so that citizens can actually benefit from them. He pleas for a less stringent approach to auditing, pointing out that the requirements used in past projects were drawn from regulation of more general public tenders. He sees these past requirements as limits not fitting with agile R&D programmes and mentions that BT is still responding to audits from FP6 (which ended in 2006!)

Of course, there is a critical need for accountability when public funds are involved but if the goal is investing for innovation too many lawyers and accountants can badly undermine the efficiency of this investment. He suggests that Horizon 2020 can improve on previous efforts by making the requirements explicit from the outset and that, in the spirit of mutual trust, when points arise which need interpretation other stakeholders should be part of those discussions; not only Commission officials.

To hear Paul Jenkins's talk, click here.

Rix Groenboom sees the bottom-up approach of Horizon 2020 as a real plus. He points out that SMEs typically have their hands full with just running their business and keeping their customers happy. Projects getting the greenlight under previous programmes have tended to be massive (on the scale of millions of euros) and so in the past SMEs have been largely excluded from participation as the amount of resources (human and financial) which they'd be required to devote put them at too great a risk.

He sees potential in a more agile model and underlines the entrepreneurial culture of the US. He sees the precautionary perspective of typical European customers as a significant barrier to the successful rollout of innovative ICT solutions. Perhaps, he says, that isn't what this audience would like to hear. The fact is that solutions aren't much good unless they actually make an impact on peoples' lives and so plans for deployment should get equal consideration alongside pure R&D.

To hear Rix Groenboom's talk, click here.

For more information about this event click here.

OPEN DATA: THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT CAN MAKE INNOVATION HAPPEN!

EIFonline — 27 Jan 2012 09:31:49 +0200

Public sector information (PSI) is the single largest source of information in Europe. It is produced and collected by public bodies and includes digital maps, meteorological, legal, traffic, financial, economic and cultural data. In a very short timeframe, the re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI) - also known as ?open data? - has become a high priority policy and economic issue in EU. It has become essential to the information economy. The number of applications based on the use of PSI is growing rapidly and the market could reach 140 Billion Euros per year. On the other hand, the re-use of PSI does raise a series of complex issues in terms of business models, legal framework, technical roadmap (interoperability) and consumer protection. On 24 January the EIF dinner debate shed light on the current state of affairs.

The European Commission is currently revising the original directive on PSI. Through public consultation it became clear that there is a need for stronger rules regarding fair use of the (open) data. A number of governments in Europe have already taken significant steps in improving the availability of data for citizens. These public bodies often are the only source of this information and as such this data can be re-used by other organizations (both companies and not for profits) with economic and other benefits for society. In support of the open data movement in Europe, the Commission is creating its own portal to share open data by mid-2012. At the same time the EC is discussing a pan-European portal with the Member States to create a single point of access. And finally, the scope of the directive is extended to include cultural heritage that is in the possession of archives, museums and libraries.

With the incredible potential of open data projects for improving education, the economy and ?democracy? one interesting question is to look at the success factors of open data projects. One of the important lessons learned in Germany with open data projects is to involve the community at a very early stage because it is not only companies using the data but also non-commercial entities. One needs the community for for crowd-sourcing purposes (the community may help moderate a discussion or program an application). However, it is a challenge to interface with these communities because they are an anonymous group of people. As such it has proven hard to pay them even small amounts of money because of the way public bodies are organized. One of the speakers called for a public community partnership model like there is the public-private partnership. A public sector body can only do community building and management (a crucial success factor for any kind of open data project) if it has flexible rates to give back to the community. And thirdly, there a common challenge for all engaging in open data and that is to measure the impact of opening data. There is a clear need for an impact measurement tool and maybe inspiration can be found in the recent trends of measuring the social return of investment (SROI). We need instruments to measure this. Or we cannot explain what is beneficial about this.

The Commission proposal does not mention education. There is however an enormous amount of data in the educational sector that is often closed but that could have an incredible impact if opened up. In universities publishers often pay 2% of the cost of the research and the remainder is funded with public funds. At the same time the publishers often take complete copyright on that content. That seems like a strange model. If one would open up such courses it will become possible to share it with many more people. For instance, Stanford University is making available a course on Artificial Intelligence as an open educational resource and is reaching 160.000 students (instead of 2000!) with that. Opening up such educational resources further could be facilitated by sharing it under a Creative Commons License. That way the information can be shared without ?giving it away?. In 2012, content 'is much like an infrastructure': if you make it available to people it can make innovation happen. The open courseware consortium for instance has 20.000 courses available online for free. These courses are not only used in Europe but also in Africa and the developing countries. In the US, online communities start to appear around such courses, answering people?s questions often within 5 minutes. The potential is enormous but Europe must move to ensure we do not fail behind America and Asia in this respect.

For more information about this event click here.

Publishing News in the Digital Era: the Quest for Free Independent Quality Journalism in Europe

EIFonline — 12 Jan 2012 12:21:32 +0200

More than a decade ago now, the writing was on the wall that the business model in the newspaper industry would radically change pending the digital revolution. Some news-making organizations today have become highly innovative in providing value for their readers, but nevertheless the publishing eco-system is shaking. Who will survive and who won't? And is there still a need for old school journalism in a world where news travels instantly via social media? The EIF dinner debate on 10 January brought new insights to the table that suggest that the opportunities may well outnumber the problems (but at a price).

It became clear years ago that if newspapers were to survive in the digital age, not only the industry should take part in the digital transformation, but also take the lead. That, in turn, meant taking risks ranging from cannibalizing existing business such as classified ads and setting up separate specialized classified ad sites (which in fact meant competing with oneself). Any newspaper today that has not yet been able to build a strong financially sustainable digital position will struggle to survive in the future. It will still take some time before we will see the same dramatic situation as in the United States but there will be some important newspapers in Europe that will go out of business. It is survival of the fittest in the digital arena like in any other arena.

From a political point of view the most important question is if we should be concerned about the future of independent quality journalism as it is mainly created within newspaper organizations today. It will be a challenge to preserve independent quality journalism and even more to preserve the diversity of journalism in the media industry. Journalism is an important part of the democratic society in Europe. Diversity in media is probably as important as quality because it makes democracies even more democratic. However, the threat for quality independent journalism is getting closer because the majority of Europe's most important newspapers don't have a reliable way of being profitable in a purely digital business.

Some say that the need for old media will diminish because social media will add so much information and diversity of information. There is something to say for that to a certain extent. Interaction between social media and traditional providers of news and journalism has become very interesting. Besides, social media are a great tool for the news sites and the news sites are also making the social media better and interesting. However, although Facebook may have infused the Arab spring, one has to realize that it will never replace Le Monde or the Frankfurter Algemeine - there will always be a need for independent quality journalism.

It is argued by some that the Internet is an opportunity for journalism because the distribution of news has become cheap. However, independent quality journalism is extremely expensive to produce; and unless you can create something of high quality, there really is no point in cheap distribution. If we agree that quality journalism is under pressure and that this is a problem, then what can we do about it? News media can charge for news or work with new innovative advertising solutions but conservatism is not the answer, and embracing change is to preserve the industry. So there is a lot we can do but we must have the right political and legal framework to make this possible. Issues such as copyright should be tackled to ensure a level playing field for all concerned. It can also be questioned why there would be different levels of VAT for digital and printed newspaper industry.

Because mobile apps and tablets have been such a big game changer the key to successful digital news publishing seems to be to have a strong handle on content and knowing the preferences of the customer base. With over 4 million registered users, FT.com for instance has been able to embrace content personalization, providing relevant and customized information to its users. The more relevant the information, the more clicks.

Free and independent journalism is essential for promoting democracy and cultural values. If we take the right political decisions today, we have a good chance to preserve a critical mass of free and independent journalism in Europe. This is worth fighting for, as it is one of the pillars of modern Europe democracy.

For more information about this event click here.

FUNDING ICT INNOVATION AND THE ROLE OF VENTURE CAPITAL: THE ENTREPRENEUR AS THE NEW EUROPEAN HERO?

EIFonline — 12 Dec 2011 09:04:21 +0200

EIF?s debate on 7 December assessed both the obstacles and opportunities for risk investment in funding ICT Innovation. Europe is ?doing? less venture capital than 10 years ago, a worrying situation in an ever-increasing competitive market environment. This is mostly due to the diverse legislation in EU Member States in this area. As it stands, the Commission is eager to reform venture capital laws and is striving to create a European venture capital passport that would allow companies to gather venture capital across the EU market. What proposals are on the table to make Europe more innovative and competitive?

To listen to the speeches of this event click here

Europe has 23 million SMEs, constituting 99% of all businesses and employing more than 90 million people. As such, SMEs are the key drivers of Europe?s growth, innovation, social cohesion and employment. The European Commission is trying hard to make it easier for these SMEs in ICT innovation to access finance. Since 2007 for example, there is the competitiveness and innovation framework programme. This programme is addressing the lack of financing for SMEs by providing debt and equity financing with over 5.6 billion Euros in guarantees and 1.6 billion Euros of venture capital for innovative SMEs. 60% of all funding with venture capital is currently going into the ICT sector because this is where innovation can thrive, in areas such as health, ageing population, energy efficiency, the multilingual web, as well as smart mobility. In addition, there is the 7th Framework Programme for Research that provides for an ICT finance market place.

Additionally, the European Commission adopted two recent proposals that are aimed at creating greater financing for startup companies. The first is a new programme for competitiveness and SMEs, with a value of 2.5 billion Euros, complemented by the Horizon 2020 programme with a value of 3.4 billion Euros. The latter is aimed at startups in areas such as ICT research and innovation, digital content and creativity. These proposals are now going to the European Parliament. And more concrete initiatives are in the pipeline. There is an e-Business initiative to stimulate SMEs to make smart use of ICT to help them integrate in the global digital value chain (with five demonstrating actions in the automobile, tourism, food supply, transport and fashion industry sectors). And finally there are initiatives such as ICT standardization, e-invoicing and e-skills to promote ICT professionalism.

Europe?s true mission however lies in empowering the new generation of venture capital people, those that will be able to really help new entrepreneurs to set up their new companies. What is lacking in Europe at the moment is the ability to combine capital with industry expertise. In Europe venture capital is more of a bankers business, whereas in the United States it normally centers around industry people. And then there is the question of the optimum ways to establish the funds. If you have to raise the funds in Italy, according to Italian law and in the Netherlands according to Dutch law you experience long delays because you have to comply with the law systems of each country. The same happens when you choose to partner with a financial institution as you have to prove your due diligence to people who often do not know your market.

The answer to the problem only partially lies in the need for a comprehensive legal framework. It is equally (or even more?) important to create a culture of risk taking and to foster that culture. In Europe, there seems to be no incentive for people to take such risks and to set up new companies. Schools could be of tremendous help in teaching people such (responsible) risk taking attitudes. This would foster more entrepreneurship. And finally, the European investment fund has played and is playing an important role by lowering the barriers to entrance and fostering a culture of innovation. Without such a fund it would be much more difficult to finance startups.

Perhaps what is needed is to view the new entrepreneur as the new superhero? If only we can foster the right climate for them, maybe they will emerge sooner than we expect.

AN EVENING WITH ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATORS: ?YES WE CAN!? IN EUROPE

EIFonline — 09 Dec 2011 17:19:51 +0200

European Entrepreneurs are similar to perhaps any type of entrepreneur: they are looking for the gaps, the opportunities, and the right regulatory climate to create new innovative businesses. So how do they do it in Europe and how successful are they? This EIF Special Reception gave the audience a ?yes we can? perspective on the European outlook.

To listen to the audio podcasts of this event click here.

As said, entrepreneurs relish contradiction. It is in the chaos that they try and identify the opportunities. A fascinating example can be found in the world of recruitment. This specialized area of business life has been changed radically by the advent of social media. In the not too distant past, a recruitment consultant would have a database with CVs; but today, LinkedIn has made this information-monopoly approach old school, not to say redundant.

One of the companies that gave their vision on this theme is Zartis, a web based business focussed on social recruitment. As 27 billion Euro is spent every year on recruitment solutions, the company saw an opportunity in this market as it was looking to find their niche. With 300.000 new Android smart phones and tablets being activated every day worldwide, Zartis is a solution aimed at the Global Mobile Social Cloud (a term coined by the company). Zartis facilitates the recruitment process. As companies post jobs onto their website, the algorithm built into the software then strategically posts these jobs on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Overall, Europe has a historical opportunity with Cloud technology. This technology is a life changing way to use computing. We only have to look at how companies like Skype have brought cheaper calls to the market without owning any infrastructure. We see that the Cloud creates new market leaders that are based on new business models. The differences for the new entrepreneurial environment are huge. Whereas in the old economy one had to always start locally, the cloud allows one to start globally, making it easy to start a global business within a fraction of the time needed in the past. Delivery of service has been reduced to almost zero cost and the cloud has cut the time for getting to market dramatically. Of course we cannot expect everyone to create the next Google, YouTube, Facebook or Skype, but people will be more likely to try to start something because of the Cloud.

The question that remains is: what can ?Brussels? do to facilitate European entrepreneurship? One major aspect where Brussels can help, is by assisting European companies to internationalize faster, so they can actually compete against US companies (which are often better funded). Also, the European Union should encourage state and semi state companies to engage with smaller IT companies. As one of the speakers put it, he had made more revenue in China with state companies that he has in the EU. If small companies want to have a chance to compete, the rules of engagement in this area may have to be renewed.

Politicians may not be able to create jobs, but they can help create the right atmosphere that creates those jobs. As 99% of all European businesses are SMEs and employ 90 million people we can only imagine what would happen if all SMEs could hire one person more! With the right number of SMEs we will have quite a sufficient talent pool to allow the next Facebook to come from Europe.

For more information about this event click here.

THE INTERNET AND THE CONSUMER: HOW TO AVOID KILLING A MOSQUITO WITH A BAZOOKA?

EIF online — 04 Dec 2011 21:51:03 +0200

EIF?s dinner debate of 29 November focused on identifying and measuring the best possible outcomes for the consumer when it comes to their Internet access and the digital market. The speakers comprised both regulators (Ed Richards, CEO of Ofcom and Chris Fonteijn, Chair of the Board of BEREC) and the consumers (Monique Goyens, Director General at BEUC).

To listen to the speeches from the EIF Debate click here.

Access to telecommunications is of key importance for today?s consumer. After all, access has become crucial for people because of possible exclusion from social life (online communications with the government, friends, or one's employer.) For a market to be truly competitive there is a need for increased consumer information and consumer mobility. This is a prerequisite that is not spontaneously met in the telecom sector according to some.

Competition and choice are therefore at the heart of delivering good outcomes. In the UK, one of the main issues that prove this is so-called "switching". Commissioner Neelie Kroes recently mentioned that for competition in the broadband and telecommunications industries to work properly, consumers need to be able to make informed choices, but equally important, they also need to be able to switch operators easily and quickly. Research shows that in the UK this is problematic. 30% of consumers that want to switch have unwanted disruption of service, of which 13% does not have broadband for two full weeks. This is bad for the competitive process and the Internet economy as a whole. As such Oftel, the regulator for the UK telecommunications industry, will draft new proposals to address this for both individual and bundled services.

A second key element for good consumer outcomes is the need to have transparent product information that goes beyond pricing information and extends to the nature and the quality of the broadband service itself. For instance, consumers are often provided with a maximum speed, which can differ radically from the real throughput speed.

Traffic management is an issue of a similar complexity and hard to explain to consumers. The way ISPs prioritize certain types of traffic to avoid congestion, should not become an anti-competitive element (such as blocking VOIP traffic), something which is at the heart of the network neutrality debate. Oftel have asked industry to look at what is best practice in communicating complex information to consumers in other sectors to facilitate this process.

Although great progress has been made on the policy side of consumer protection on innovation and competition, significantly less progress has been made in the areas of data and information. This could be one of the most profound issues of the next 20 years, as the Internet has changed the set of relationships between private companies and individuals and also between public bodies, the state and individuals. Current data protection frameworks must be updated and take into account these new developments.

New approaches towards consumer protection and competition are also recently becoming visible. For instance, in the Netherlands the Telecoms regulator Opta will next year be merged together with both the competition authority NMa and the consumer regulatory body to form one new integrated organization. This is a clear example of a direction change from an approach of pure regulation and pure competition to more emphasis on the consumer.

This shift in regulatory direction will place end-users much more in the forefront. The same can be seen in other areas of consumer protection. The issues that are most debated currently are how to provide consumers with a safe internet experience and include spam fighting, malware fighting and the general security of the Internet. In the area of online shopping similar regulatory trends are taking place. Recently the European Commission?s ban on vertical restraints (combined with related case law) has made a total ban on Internet sales by distributors virtually impossible. At the same time, competition authorities are looking into the issue of price transparency and the initial conclusion is that this could lead to enormous benefits for the consumer. And last but not least: e-commerce is developing well, but cross border e-commerce is not developing at the same pace. Could it be that it?s not the border but the distance that is scaring consumers away? As pointed out at EIF's debate: there are currently proposals on the table from the European Commission that deal with this issue but some say they are like killing a mosquito with a bazooka: you are not sure the mosquito is dead but you have created a lot of collateral damage.

In summary, competition can be a primary mechanism for good consumer outcomes, but targeted regulation on the demand side is also needed in that respect. That, combined with an obligation to provide information and a clear framework for consumers and businesses of the use of personal and public data, can only work if all organizations involved operate in conjunction. This will be the only way to create a credible approach to protect consumers online in the next years to come.

For more information about this event, click here.

BUILDING THE FUTURE OF E-FINANCIAL SERVICES: IS MOBILE THE NEW 'PLASTIC'?

EIF online — 17 Oct 2011 08:44:10 +0200

?Mobile is the new plastic? and ?The Bank of Me? were some of the intriguing phrases coined by our speakers during the EIF-EPFSF Dinner Debate about the future of e-Financial Services and the innovative payment options that should bring a range of benefits both for consumers and businesses. Financial institutions are rapidly adapting to these new trends in consumers? behaviors and needs. This debate highlighted the current trends in these sectors, as well as the regulatory framework in which they operate and the opportunities and challenges that they entail.

To listen to the speeches from EIF-EPFSF's Debate click here.

Most important for the future of e-Financial Services is the fact that the building blocks are in place now. Smart phones exist, high-speed network connect them and allow us to have an appropriate customer experience. Consumers have understood that you can do much more than calling and texting with a phone. Standards have been agreed on or are in the process of being agreed on and business models for innovation are in place. Technologies such as Near Field Communication will be an accelerator of the shift from a cash economy to an e-payment economy which in turn will have an impact on the grey economy and can tackle money laundering.

But all of the above will only be possible if consumers believe that the services are secure. Operators are working hard to make sure that there is for example a virtual passsport to access your electronic wallet and that when you lose your phone-wallet you can transfer your money to your new phone-wallet without your digital money being stolen. Mechanisms such as asking for a password every 10 transactions are aimed at maximum protection against unauthorised use of your e-wallet. Interoperable standards should make the technology transparent and should make it easy for as many businesses as possible to adopt the technology. Agreeing on the standards will be key for a successful adoption and implementation.

Mobile payments have been around for several years already but the early services were subscription-based services. When people would buy a ringtone or a logo on their phone they often did not realize that there were monthly fees associated with this purchase. This left a bit of a stigma on mobile payments, but the definition of what a mobile payment is has vastly expanded over the years. We are now moving into a much more sophisticated payment system that goes far beyond these early services. We can now make payments at point of sale for instance by 'touch to pay' to buy a coffee or a newspaper. The idea however is that this will also be possible for high value transactions in the near future.

Mobile payments would eventually replace the use of plastic cards to pay at a point of sale and credit cards would in fact become applications residing on the phone of your sim card with part of the information being stored in the Cloud. What remains crucial is that within that entire payment spectrum there is adequate protection for these payments for all parties, i.e. consumers, merchants and banks and that there is a maximum choice of handsets available to use as such a payment method and that payments are device agnostic. One speaker also begged the question 'who will want to pay extra for using a mobile phone as a payment tool and will the burden for this be on consumers or not?'

Enabling e-financial services will depend on security, convenience and utility and on the idea that it would be available anytime, anyplace, anywhere. As ironic as it may sound, cash is the most used but also most expensive method of payment. For innovation to progress, various players called upon the Institutions for a focus on outcome based standards and promoting competition to allow new entrants. The 'Bank of Me' is only a question of time it seems.

For more information about this event, click here

THE IGF IN TRANSITION: KEEPING THE MULTI-STAKEHOLDER DREAM ALIVE

EIF online — 17 Oct 2011 07:03:37 +0200

The IGF this year was a special one as the IGF in Nairobi was the first event in the second cycle of the IGF, with an extended mandate for another 5-year term. As such, high expectations had been vested into the IGF this year. At the same time some key people departed from IGF, which seemed to leave a power vacuum. The EIF Breakfast Debate on the IGF provided an intriguing overview of both the internal politics of IGF and the issues at stake.

To listen to the speeches from EIF's Debate click here

First of all, the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) had been tasked by the UN with setting up a Working Group to do a review of the IGF and to come up with recommendations for IGF improvements. A small group of governments felt it would be best if this working group would be composed of governments only. Although the decision was later modified to include non-governmental stakeholder representatives as guests after protests from many parties, this decision did some damage and the Working Group did not come up with their final recommendations in time before this year's IGF.

At the same time there have been calls for different 'roads' to implementation of the process of Internet policies from various sides in the debate. Multi-stakeholder participation has been particularly encouraged in the Internet Governance debate for instance by France and the EU institutional delegation. But, on the other side of the debate, the IBSA countries, i.e. India, Brazil and South Africa suggested that there should be an appropriate body in the UN system to coordinate and evolve integrated global public policies pertaining to the Internet. And finally, Russia, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan proposed a UN Code of Conduct for the Internet, where they reaffirmed the key role and right of sovereign states in determining Internet-related public policy issues.

Looking at some of the key issues debated during this IGF there are interesting times ahead. ICANN has gone through another phase of transformation, an Accountability and Transparency Review process; at the same time it opened up this year to the possibility for generic top level domains. As to the IP Number allocation, this year saw the depletion of the IPv4 address space and transition to IPv6 as not something in the future, but as an imminent issue. On the issue of Access there seems to be recognition that the mobile Internet is going to be the way most newcomers in the developing world will access the Internet. And we have also seen the importance of the mobile Internet early this year in the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, which showed the transformative nature of the Internet for societies. And finally on the issue of Security, Privacy and Openness, Government leaders have now realized how the Internet can be used to influence people's minds and how it is the first ?man-made military domain?. Hence, we should expect the nature of the debate to shift considerably in the future, as attacks on countries cyber systems are expected to increase. What remains fundamental is that parliamentarians should help to keep the Internet an open space, and prevent the erosion of civil liberties.

We can conclude that this year's IGF in Nairobi has been a success once again and that the multi-stakeholder participation and collaboration process will be key in keeping it a success in the future.

For more information about this event click here

MAXIMIZING THE POTENTIAL OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY: TOWARDS THE GLOBAL CLOUD

EIF online — 26 Sep 2011 12:04:03 +0200

Following the success of the Transatlantic Week 2011 organised by the Transatlantic Policy Network and supported by EIF, which took place in Washington D.C. (12-14 July) under the title ?Challenges Ahead: Can the Transatlantic Economy Stay Competitive?? (view report), the EIF breakfast debate focused on taking the digital dialogue between the two sides of the Atlantic forward even more.

William Kennard, US Ambassador to the European Union and Christian Leffler, Managing Director Americas, European External Action Service reminded the audience that the digital efforts made on both the US and the EU side are surprisingly similar. Both are struggling to maximize investment in broadband and both are looking particularly to focus on wireless bandwidth.

To listen to the speeches from EIF's Debate click here.

In the United States, President Obama created the National Wireless Initiative, a program that aims to repurpose spectrum from defense and television application towards commercial wireless data use. With 55 million tablets sold last year there is a rapidly increasing need for wireless bandwidth. Don't forget that each of these tablet devices consumes roughly 25 times more bandwidth than a smartphone!

At the same time, cloud computing fuels the demand for bandwidth even further. Cloud services like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and eBay are all providing content that is in high demand. Businesses at the same time migrate their ICT data and applications into the cloud to be more effective.

Next to the cloud and wireless data, both continents also face the struggle of redefining IPR laws and agreeing on the issue of privacy and related jurisdictional issues. Where spectrum and bandwidth are perhaps more domestic issues, both IPR and Cloud aspects have a high Transatlantic component. In the end the aim is to allow data to seamlessly flow around the world.

The US delegation is in constant dialogue with their counterparts in the INFOSOC department of the European Commission. Both agree that the Cloud is at the top of the agenda. It is vital for our economies that we create a system of mutual recognition. Such a system does not have to be perfect but it should at least be compatible to ensure a high level of flexibility.

Often, EU and the US citizens are stereotyped in a way that is an oversimplification of reality: ?American don?t care about privacy but only about security and Europeans care about privacy but not about security.? Although the systems are different, privacy is as important to the American as the US Ambassador to the European Union pointed out. In that respect, the Open Government Partnership aims to establish a so-called "coalition of the willing" and is looking at how to make governments better worldwide so that citizens can reap the full benefits of the new world.

But the debate does not end there: we must look beyond the EU-US collaboration and ensure that global structures for data flows are put in place. Already, the OECD and the G8 are focusing on new principles for such flows.

For more information about this event click here.

INNOVATIVE ICT MODELS PROPEL DEVELOPING AND EMERGING ECONOMIES

EIF online — 23 Sep 2011 10:11:19 +0200

ICT is improving quality of life and the economic situation for many people in developing and emerging economies. The EU, as well as private companies are fostering these processes and aim to modernize the ICT environment in for example Africa and South America. EIF?s Dinner Debate on 20 September provided fascinating insights into developing markets that are growing at rapid speed.

To listen to the speeches from EIF's Debate click here.

If we look at Africa, the last 10 years show an incredible ?mobile boom? from under one million users to over 500 million users today. Policy reforms have attracted more than 50 billion Euro in investments and broadband capacity multiplied by a factor 100 while tariffs dropped between 10 and 25 times. That makes Africa the fastest growing market worldwide. However it is still far behind Europe. With 40 times les traffic (than Europe) and less than 1% broadband penetration overall, the digital divide is still wide.

Mobile phone penetration has however created a turning point that brings new opportunities in terms of development because the technology has now become affordable and accessible and this spurts strong patterns of growth. What has become clear however, is that we need a comprehensive approach that recognizes that human development is essential for economic prosperity.

One of the pillars in that arena is the EU-Africa partnership on infrastructure, bringing together backbone infrastructure and satellite operators, funded by European development banks. Projects under this programme need to have at least 2 countries involved and are demand driven. A second pillar in this process is the EU-Africa partnership on Science, Information Society and Space. The rationale of it is that it is useless to invest in infrastructure if you do not have an enabling environment around that. This means taking action to promote regulatory support and programs to help people to develop digital content relevant to Africa in their own languages. The 3rd pillar is the R&D ICT programme of FP7, which is fully open to African participation and currently holds a number of projects that try to adapt technology to the local context(s).

Other areas that require a new approach are in the field of regulation. Because of the many networks there are several initiatives that try to harmonize regional regulatory frameworks in areas such as spectrum licensing and security. These measures are all developed in EU-Africa partnerships and aim to maximize impact on the ground.

One element of the obstacles to overcome are the access networks themselves. Internet needs more bandwidth than voice traffic and therefore there is an immediate need to develop bigger capacity fibre optic connections, and international connections because of a current lack of content produced locally in Africa. The devices themselves also still pose a hurdle because they are not as sophisticated as they are in Europe for example. To meet these limitations, applications such as Facebook Zero were developed that can offer similar to usual service on less high-tech equipment.

And last but not least there is the important part of ICT?s role in education. ICT is both a means and a must to transform education. When todays teenagers retire in 2060 they will have had more than 15 different jobs, a so-called certainty in uncertainty! Hence current education thinking needs to be transformed. Intel invested 10 billion Euro on developing such an education transformation model working together with over 60 governments. Such models also include transforming teachers into ICT educators through a predefined process and getting them involved in content creation.

For more information about this event click here.

IGF IN A TIME OF CHANGE: TIME FOR A NEW DEAL?

EIF online — 27 Jun 2011 09:34:21 +0200

The Internet Governance Forum (Nairobi, 27-30 September) has been named: ?Internet as a catalyst for change: access, development and innovation?. The IGF comes at a time where the Internet is more rapidly than ever changing our lives deeper than ever before. The challenge for the IGF is that it has to respond in an adequate way and still maintain its multistakeholder platform approach. The EIF dinner debate about the IGF asked the burning question: will IGF succeed in doing this in the next five years?

Internet Governance still has a very narrow policy footprint today but times are changing in this respect. Much of the power of the IGF is that it has no decision making power as such, which ensures that all stakeholders can and want to be a part of it. The EU sees the IGF as a success to date, but now, in 2011 we need a New Deal.

The world has changed, there has been crisis in global government, and in almost any possible policy area imaginable (think about trade, migration, etc.). The IGF is now interwoven in the overall policy context and the Internet has reached the top of the global political agendas. The web has become a critical infrastructure element.

At the same time the web consumer has changed. The web is no longer for libertarians alone, there are over 2 billion ?real? consumers out there that use the web as part of their everyday lives, from online shopping to socializing, or watching tv on the web. The power of the user has increased tremendously and consumers today voice their concerns via Twitter, Facebook or any other means they have at their online disposal. Politicians, in return, listen more frequently and more closely to what they have to say.

If, however, the IGF does not fill the gap on the governing of the Internet and its related issues then the UN or the G20 or the G8 will step into that gap to fill the policy vacuum. And this might ?dilute? the inclusiveness and multi-stakeholder element of the IGF. One of the challenges for IGF is that governments need to secure the buy-in from the population to give the process legitimacy. Both civil society and the industry have added positively to the debate and have contributed to a better general understanding of many issues around Internet Governance. The active participation of all stakeholders will be key in ?shaping the future agenda on internet governance?.

The last five years of IGF have demonstrated that that issues that are not handled by any other institution get handled within the IGF. IGF can be seen to have a positive impact on governments globally. All stakeholder recognize that the discussions in IGF now are more mature and that there is a better understanding among stakeholders. And last but not least national, international, regional and local levels are becoming more connected.

In summary: IGF provides stability, it has become more mature, and there is more trust, but at the same time there is much more to do!

To listen to the speeches and download material about this event click here.

eEU27: COMMISSIONER KROES CALLS FOR POLICY BOOST OF DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET

EIF online — 17 Jun 2011 13:12:03 +0200

European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes honored EIF at a special cocktail event the day before the Digital Agenda Assembly in Brussels. She carried a strong message: if we do not establish an eEU27 very soon, a true Digital Single Market, then we are killing the goose with the digital golden eggs. The Digital Single Market should have been ready ?yesterday? in her words.

Mrs. Kroes and the EIF governors were clearly on the same page in moving forward on the Digital Agenda. Mrs Kroes thanked the Parliament for the way cooperation is taking place. She also mentioned that there would be more difficult issues to follow in the near future. Admitting that she herself is perhaps not particularly diplomatic, she emphasized that ?time is not our friend? and that policy needs a dramatic speed boost in the next 12 months.

?We had plenty of chances?, Mrs Kroes said. The digital economy is growing by 12% per year and we must swiftly progress with removing the obstacles that are in the way of a Digital Single Market. 'Why not aim for 20% growth in our digital economies?' It is exactly that what Europeans need in Mrs Kroes' opinion. In that respect she conveyed that it is of utmost importance that national decision makers are made aware of how their interests and the digital agenda intersect. New jobs for Europe are at stake.

Mrs Kroes mentioned policy areas that she wants to focus on in the next 12 months, although pointing out that this list was not at all complete. For example, Trust and Privacy issues are holding back e-commerce in Europe, she said and continued that 'Industry needs to play ball', It is disheartening that European citizens are still not able to buy the music and books that they want via regular online channels. The fact that illegal alternatives are around the corner is not a good experience for consumers.

See all pictures here

EIF governors emphasized that the Digital Agenda is one of the flagships of the EU 2020 Strategy and that the work done to date by the Commission is a great first step. However, the first step provides the framework and now we have to take action to avoid the same disappointing results as the Lisbon Strategy, in the words of one of the MEP governors.

Big picture questions still remain on the table as well. Where does Europe fit in the global context one needs to wonder? The Cloud and Net Neutrality are just some examples where Europe needs to have a coherent vision and execution if it wants to remain a player in the global innovation game. The governors also emphasized the importance of a stand against those counrties fencing off the Internet and a plea to make the Internet pie bigger for everyone, whilst protecting human rights and looking beyond mere market potential.

In conclusion Mrs Kroes reiterated that we cannot get complacent: the digital world is expanding at enormous speed. 'Things will bite us if we do not do something today'.

ENCOURAGING INNOVATIVE SMEs IN ICT: 'GIVE ME A SINGLE MARKET!'

EIF online — 31 May 2011 09:29:27 +0200

SMEs provide two thirds of the private sector jobs and contribute to more than half of the total value-added created by businesses in the EU. SMEs are the true back-bone of the European economy, being primarily responsible for wealth and economic growth, next to their key role in innovation and R&D. SMEs however complain that growing and expanding in Europe or internationally is a tough proposition because of the lack of an Internal Market.

Once SMEs cross their national border they find that there are highly specific rules on how you can or cannot work in another EU country; there are detailed laws to expand, that differ greatly from those in their country of origin or neighboring countries. At the EIF breakfast debate on 25 May, where a panel of entrepreneurs provided their views on these topics, one of the speakers mentioned that his operation from Germany was treated as if they were behaving criminally when the German tax authorities noticed that money was (legally) being moved to another part of the company outside Germany.

Hence, many of the SME expansion and growth problems are not related to technology issues but to the administrative burdens, the legal system and the lack of an Internal Market. There is a huge need for a simplified process in Europe for running a business.

One of the speakers mentioned that he once received a generous offer to move his business to the US. The venture capitalist who made the offer simply said that since Europe does not have a Single Market, the USA would be a splendid alternative: one huge Single Market, promising rapid expansion and possible worldwide growth from there. It appears to be a much quicker route today than going 'via Europe'. In addition, venture capital in Europe is much less accessible than in the US. Because it is more fragmented it is harder for SMEs to bring their innovations to the market.

The IPR issue, obtaining the right patent protection, is another part of the problem in Europe. Several SMEs have been advised by lawyers in Europe to first go to the US to apply for a patent and then come back to Europe because it's so much easier 'there'. To be able to defend your SME patent the costs can be exponential. Often SMEs do not have the resources to handle this process.

The startup of an SME is not the problem. Problems start when you want to work with it and grow it in Europe, that's the real challenge. The fragmented markets in Europe obstruct real growth fuelled by innovation. It is no longer sufficient to have a good idea and to go to the market; today one must compete at an international level. The Public Private Partnership launched by the European Commission was welcomed as a step in the right direction to bridge the existing gaps.

At the same time, there is a need for a faster time-to-the-market approach. Currently some SMEs work in tandem with multinationals on their patents for example to get the registration covered. Of course this means the SME would have to give away a share of the profits to this multinational for their help.

Finally there is yet another dimension to the transparency of patents worldwide. In China for instance it is impossible to gain insight into how Chinese patents are treated compared to Western patents. In Germany or Paris there would be no problem to make such a comparison between case law concerning two national EU Member State patents. Such issues can be an additional challenge in the ever-increasing global competition race. If Europe wants to succeed in stimulating SMEs in ICT to become more innovative and to produce the next Google or Microsoft it should work hard on creating a true Internal Market to that end.

To listen to the speeches and download material about this event click here.

WHO PAYS THE INTERNET? DINNER WITH ED VAIZEY

EIF online — 30 May 2011 10:38:25 +0200

The Internet of things is starting to emerge and there is a real need for Europe to 'up' its Internet game and to promote, rather than stifle web innovation. At the EIF dinner debate on 26 May, Mr. Ed Vaizey, the UK minister responsible for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, advocated an approach of letting the market regulate itself and to appreciate the complexity of the current debates (WATCH VIDEO HERE).

In April there was a call from telecoms operators for a new approach to peering. Based on that, there seems to be the expectation that something has to be done. Mr Vaizey stated he believes that right now there is no case for regulating peering. In fact he recalled that only a few years ago the very same regulation issue was opposed at ITU level. The argument then was that it would be best left to the market; and this Mr Vaizey supports wholeheartedly today as well.

Within the debate, the question has emerged whether or not the current commercial model of Internet traffic flows (peering) is broken. In Mr Vaizey's eyes it certainly is not. If it had been he said, it would have become evident before the current debate on peering emerged. There is no compelling evidence to suggest that the commercial ranges on peering that exist at the moment are inadequate.

It would certainly be a simplification of the debate to believe that network owners are doing content providers a favor of carrying their traffic. The reality is more complex and it would be a false conclusion to think that all the pain is for network operators. 40% of the revenues of dailymotion.com for instance are quoted by this service to be supporting network operators and peering arrangements. Any threats to flexible peering would undermine the infrastructure of the Internet and as such, if telecom operators and other players are not adhering to existing arrangements that are in place, then regulatory intervention might be a necessity.

On a par with peering, network neutrality also remains a complex debate. Mr Vaizey agreed that Commissioner Kroes' approach is the right one. There should be a focus on the customer and on competition, and making sure that customers are free to choose the operator they want.

For the UK the focus at this very moment is on rolling out faster broadband services and on stimulating investment in this area by deregulation and sharing of infrastructure. The UK 2015 target to connect a large majority of the UK to superfast broadband networks is currently on its way with 7 pilot projects rolling out to hit so-called Not Spots. IPv6 is of course a major part of the whole discussion as it would be no good to have superfast networks if people cannot connect to them. As such Mr Vaizey is promoting the discussing in an IPv6 forum led by business.

To watch the video of Ed Vaizey's speech click here.

TRANSATLANTIC CYBER-SECURITY: ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL

EIF online — 18 Apr 2011 09:30:52 +0200

The EU and US recently launched a Working Group on Cyber-security and Cyber-crime to increase transatlantic cooperation in this area. Improving EU & US Cyber-security will require defining political priorities and an important collaboration between the public and private sectors. An EIF debate on this topic was hosted on 13 April. The growing sophistication of cyber threats and the interconnected nature of the Internet put cyber-security beyond the reach of any single government or organization. A successful transatlantic strategy therefore needs synergies but the parties involved need to speak with one voice. Something that is not (yet) the case according to Mr. Bell, Secretary of Defense Representative, Europe & Defense Advisor, at the U.S. Mission to NATO.

In November 2010 there were two summits in Lisbon (out of 4) that talked about cyber security. There was a US-EU Summit and a NATO summit. The US-EU summit agreed amongst other things to set up a cyber security and cyber crime working-group to coordinate regional exercises on cyber attacks and disruptions in both the US and the EU. The press release of that summit mentioned the adoption of principles to agree a stable Internet and to develop further global outreach by 2013. However, that release did not (as the US had hoped) refer to NATO cooperation on cyber security.

On the same day, NATO published a press release stating a new mission statement with significant emphasis placed on cyber security and defense, and speeding up the implementation of getting its own command structure in order. The NATO command structure however is dependent on critical infrastructure in host nations (if you have a NATO base in Italy you do not want it to be possible for that base to be shut down via a cyber attack). As such, the NATO declaration specifically mentions that it is "imperative" that NATO co-operates as closely as possible with the EU.

Mr. Bell highlighted this contradiction between the two declarations from the EU and the one from NATO. He strongly recommends to bridge this gap before working group meetings between the US and the EU start in June of this year, and with good reason.

Reaching out to NATO has important advantages for a coordinated approach to cyber security. NATO has been in the security standards business from the beginning (think cold war days). Now that modern warfare has become network enabled and even network centric, the focus of NATO's interoperability has shifted to commercially available technologies that allow NATO to work much more effectively and efficiently. Working together with NATO as such would therefore create economies of scale and of interoperable security networks between all partners.

For instance, the cooperation in Afghanistan between NATO and the US includes the participation of 4 EU Member States that are not a member of NATO (Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Austria). These Member States do participate in the information sharing via networks used for intelligence sharing that are protected against cyber attacks. As such there are common interests at the heart of protecting critical infrastructure of which all partners would benefit.

In addition, it is important to highlight that public-private sector cooperation has become a critical element of a successful cyber security approach, as highlighted by Eric Loeb, Vice President International, External and Regulatory Affairs at AT&T. Collaboration is no longer an option but a clear necessity because of the global nature of the challenges we face. Modern cyber security therefore must bridge the gaps between all strategic partners involved to be successful.

To listen to the speeches and download material about this event click here.
From top left to bottom right: Ivailo Kalfin MEP, Eric Loeb (AT&T), Robert Bell (US Mission to NATO), Eva Lichtenberg MEP and Edit Herczog MEP

A SMARTER EUROPE FOR ALL: SMART GRIDS, SMART POLICY!

EIF online — 18 Apr 2011 07:28:25 +0200

The EIF dinner debate on smart grids on 12 April coincided with the publication of the European Commission Communication "Smart Grids: from innovation to deployment". Currently only 10% of European households use smart technologies. The Commission Communication is looking to find consensus on the various challenges facing further smart grid deployment. In its Communication, the Commission focuses on 5 areas: technical standards, data protection of consumers, cyber security, the adjustment of the regulatory framework and the guarantee of an open competitive market. Now Europe has to make the right political choices to make smart grids a success. What will be the challenges facing the grid?

The goal of smart grids is to make the present electricity grid become a network that can intelligently deliver the right energy service at the right time and create a sustainable, economic and secure electricity supply. The target set by European policy makers is to reach 20 % of that total energy supply coming from renewable resources by 2020. However, in order to reach the overall 20 percent goal, more than 20 percent of the electricity will have to come from renewables by 2020. With that in mind, the electricity grid will have to be improved to enable the new tasks required from it by society.

Predictions on the energy mix by 2020 say that wind energy will deliver 20% of the electricity to the grid, and 13% will be solar energy. Whatever the exact numbers will be, this will have a tremendous impact on our electricity grids. It is not about the amount of energy a grid has to carry that is important. The most important element of a grid is the power that has to flow through the grid elements at any point in time. In other words if you use variable inputs like solar and wind energy you need a flexible (higher!) capacity of the grid.

For instance, if at a certain moment a lot of wind is available and the sun is shining brightly then the generation of electricity will be (Europe wide) higher than demand. In order to balance the system, storage, demand side response and eventually curtailment of renewable resources will be needed (2020 targets). Therefore a lot of new technologies, market based incentives, control interactions, flow assessments, will become necessary. New types of demand may be integrated in the system, such as the electric or plug in hybrid vehicle, to pool resources efficiently.

Driving all those interactions will require a lot of data management. The intelligent meter will be the gateway to these services. Technically this is all possible, but two majors questions have to be solved. The first one is the reliability. Using data communication networks to control the energy flow in real time may bring this reliability in danger. The other question concerns privacy. We should avoid that real time consumption can be linked for instance to the presence or absence of the occupants of a building. Solutions have to be found, such as using aggregation on a low level (say 50 houses) in a virtual power plant environment that reduces the spread of information to the individual behaviour.

Another challenge is that smart grids are more expensive than classical grids as they have to fulfil more requests from society: organising the market, delivering electricity with a very high level of reliability, supplying more energy services than before, enabling to harvest renewable energy resources. This will cost money and the necessary financial incentives have to be given to the market parties to deliver, both regulated and in the competitive area. And last but not least we must remember that smart technology requires the right ICT solutions: broadband technology (and roll-out) for instance is a key enabler in these processes. ICT as such will have a major role to play in climate change strategies.

Solutions are possible, but not evident. Walking the path may be different from knowing the path and Europe needs to intelligently address the issues at stake to succeed in effective smart grid deployment.

To listen to the speeches and download material about this event click here.

CLOSING EUROPE'S DIGITAL BROADBAND DIVIDE

EIF online — 22 Mar 2011 12:41:33 +0200

How does one close the digital divide between those who have broadband and those who have not (yet!). This was the focus of the EIF breakfast debate on 16 March. The European Commission aims to have achieved total digital inclusion for all citizens by 2013 (100% broadband coverage) as one of the key goals of the Digital Agenda for Europe. How is Europe doing in accomplishing this and how will it deal with remote rural areas as part of the promise of digital inclusion?

Europe has managed to move quickly in the last year on its digital agenda in the area of broadband. Broadband penetration is steadily increasing even though there are still huge differences between for instance the Northern part of Europe and the South. Also, many people do have the ability to connect to broadband but are not doing so yet because they are often not aware that they have the option. This means that apart from the issue of connectivity there is also the challenge of stimulating demand. This can partially be achieved by governing the use of broadband into healthcare and education. Finding reasons to connect that go beyond recreation and commerce and that make society more productive as a whole should be part of the strategy to increase demand.

Consumption of broadband is steadily on the rise because of the much increased use of smart phones. This will force additional focus on wireless broadband. As the tablet pc and smart phones are gaining market share, there is an interesting and recognized pattern of desktop pc sales slowing down consistently. As a consequence, there will also have to be a renewed focus on wireless spectrum repurposing to apply it to broadband usage. In rural areas this is especially important because it is often easier to apply wireless solutions than installing a wire line infrastructure.

The USA and the EU have a shared vision in these matters: how can we deploy broadband faster as a public good? The US ambassador to the EU pointed out that one significant difference between the US and the EU is that the we Europeans do not yet have a fully developed single market place. In addition, the EU online market place is less mature in that only 30% of Europeans use the web for Internet transactions. There is huge untapped potential in that area as such.

More good news is that new technologies are now making it increasingly feasible to have broadband in rural areas. The European satellite operators unveiled that they can now offer rural broadband via satellite for a mere 25 Euro per month at a speed of 10 megabits per second. Recently for instance, 3000 people in Scotland were connected to satellite broadband as part of a government project.

According to the European Commission, focus should continue on ensuring universal broadband service in Europe. The broad consumer and public policy interest should also go well beyond the telecoms sector and policy. According to the Commission the burden for 'broadband for all' should not be exclusively put on the shoulders of the network operators. Commissioner Kroes, in support of the Digital Agenda, has been highly accommodating to broadband investment in this respect to reach the European goal more quickly. However, national and regional authorities could also contribute more with the tools at their disposal in the area of spectrum policy to assist broadband reach into areas not easily served by existing fixed technologies.

To listen to the speeches and download material about this event click here.

BROADBAND FOR ALL: THE BATTLE FOR SPECTRUM IN THE 21ST CENTURY

EIF online — 21 Mar 2011 09:47:02 +0200

Spectrum policy can be a passionate subject, as could be witnessed at EIF dinner debate on 15 March. Representatives from the broadcasting, telecom and consulting industry reflected on the European Commission's recent package of broadband measures, including a five year policy programme for planning and harmonising the use of the EU's radio spectrum. What are the lessons learned to date in the broadband discussion?

From the broadcasting point of view the future of TV is hybrid, and will be partially carried via digital terrestrial networks in a mix with TV services delivered via broadband networks. Contrary to what one may think, the consumption of TV over broadband today is a meagre 5% whereas the other 95% is delivered in the 'traditional' way. If today all TV would be delivered via broadband it would be safe to say all broadband networks would collapse. Broadband, in the eyes of the broadcasters, can never be the only solution. In the short term there will be a need to combine both terrestrial and broadband networks. Digital Terrestrial will still be the main pillar of television in the decade to come. However, terrestrial tv will also remain important to guarantee universal service, safeguarding access for all.

The telecom debate is another story. Europe is playing a relatively small role in spectrum allocation policy. In the end it is the Member States who define their own policy with significant freedoms. The interests of the Member States are not always corresponding with the European interest. Member States are looking to balance their (own) state budget, promote coverage and innovation and create the highest possible added-value because spectrum is scarce. There is a strong field of tension between these policies because the focus is on state revenues. This means the largest operators in the market are pushed to pay the price their business case can carry. This price is too high for small carriers and new entrants because the large operators are always prepared to pay a premium. Smaller operators will be outbid which would be a disaster for competition, unless one wants to aim for consolidation. However, consolidation does not bring a single market for European mobile telecoms. It will in fact create, or maintain, 27 national markets with less competition. The risk is that there will not be even a mere beginning of a single market with such an approach.

If we want to make the best use of the new technologies it is important not to fragment the spectrum too much. This could be achieved by stimulating competition via virtual networks, or by sharing spectrum and infrastructure, especially if we take into consideration a desire for high quality rural coverage. The spectrum that is available right now will not be sufficient for the growing demand. Initiatives are needed from both the regulators and the operators. Since all operators need a good frequency mix, one solution could be to make frequency bands technology neutral. In this respect, Europe should perhaps pay more attention to how Member States work out their allocation policies.

To listen to the speeches and download material about this event click here.

AMBIENT-ASSISTED LIVING: HOW ICT ASSISTS THE ELDERLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

EIF online — 15 Feb 2011 07:12:15 +0200

The ageing population is a fact. We are looking at a future were the number of people over 65 will double, and the number of people over 80 will triple. In the context of the recently launched European Commission Consultation on active and healthy ageing, the EIF debate on 'Ambient-Assisted Living: Ageing in the 21st Century' on 2 February focused on how new Information and Communication Technologies can be instrumental in enhancing the quality of life of the elderly.

The statistics speak for themselves. A tsunami of elderly people is on the horizon, and our current healthcare systems cannot handle this as we could do it in the past. The traditional care for the elderly will not be possible because of an outflow of care people who will reach old age themselves, and who will not be replaced by people at the same level. In essence, there will not be enough care takers to take care.

ICT can bring a huge benefit to this care cycle by making it more efficient and ensuring faster circulation of information. The Ambient-Assisted Living industry is an entirely new one. It will be an industry of people caring for other people, with the help of ICT. ICT will for instance enable to effectively manage the networks of people that are going to assist the elderly.

The technology is no longer an issue, the necessary devices and tools exist today. The challenge however is to get these systems into the homes of people. The obstacles are that there are no large scale actors in this field yet. France Telecom has been experimenting for 10 years with such technology but assessed that there needs to be more structure in this market for it to be a success. A fragmented industry is an obstacle for deployment of the information technology. There is such a real need for large customers to partner, and in that way develop the services. Small actors simply do not have the financial or intellectual power to create the large systems needed.

The recent European Innovation Partnership (EIP) focuses on increasing the productivity of care workers by using technology. The EU is trying to do this in partnership with its U.S. colleagues. The aims of the Partnership are to create a sustainable healthcare system, with better patient care, and to create markets for a whole new range of industries. At the same time, the Commission is trying to bring together a multidisciplinary approach where privacy, procurement, regional policy and all stakeholders are part of an integrated plan. The idea is to pool resources together in order to achieve the market and to ensure wide deployment.

The EIP will offer a framework of international cooperation. If Europe manages to bring its power together to create an industry that is new in the world, this can become a worldwide market.

To listen to the speeches of this event click here.

HOW THE WEB TRANSFORMS TV (BUT NOT AS WE THOUGHT IT WOULD...)

EIF online — 14 Feb 2011 11:18:10 +0200

Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC gave a lively speech at the European Internet Foundation Dinner Debate on 9 February. Focussing on how the Internet is transforming the way we watch television, he concludes that things are not happening the way we predicted them 5 to 10 years ago.

The essential prediction many people had in mind for classic linear TV was a model of substitution. Successive forms of traditional media would be superseded by the Internet, a prediction that turned out to be false. As strange as it may seem, in light of the enormous penetration of the web, conventional television viewing is going up. There has been a high amount of innovation in passive linear TV, think of HD, 3D, and Dolby Surround for example. Passive TV has been adapting and innovating with richer service, higher quality and a broader choice. It did not disappear at all, quite the contrary in fact.

Of course TV is not immune to the Internet revolution but it seems that things are moving at different speeds for different media. If we distinguish three main areas in tv broadcasting (information, entertainment and education), then we can identify some of the trends that appear to be going on.

The information component is far ahead. We get it from multiple devices. Often we do not recall if we first received information via our BlackBerry, Ipad, the web, or TV. We live in a cloud of news information. In the area of entertainment the Internet revolution has however been much slower. As mentioned before, the passive TV experience has been getting higher in quality and richer. In addition to that, we now have multichannel TV and asynchronicity, i.e. we watch a program when we want it by time shifting it. This has now become the standard expectation of viewers. However, the interactivity levels in entertainment have been lagging behind. Education sits somewhere between the information and entertainment in terms of interactivity.

Another theme is that of globalization and even Europeanization of TV. Barriers for European content around the world are falling down. The same can be seen in other international markets from Australia to Japan and even in the US.

At the same time, convergence is finally beginning to become a reality. Most of the TV sets sold today have Internet capability. However the experience can be much different from the actual web browser based web experience. The BBC amongst others are trying to streamline this to create a more TV like experience of IPTV. The future of TV will therefore be multiple screen and multiple devices. People may watch TV whilst gathering information on a second device.

One thing is sure; people want a richer mix of content. The social space will enrich the TV experience but we are not moving from a TV only world to a strictly social content world. There will be a mix where the social space complements the professional production space. The need for professionally produced content and journalism is as high as ever. Welcome to the hybrid world.

To watch the video of this event, click here.

GLOBAL HEALTH: A VISION OF E-HEALTH SERVICES IN THE FRAMEWORK OF AN ENHANCED EU-US COLLABORATION

EIF online — 07 Feb 2011 08:52:26 +0200

Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy officer at Microsoft, was the keynote speaker at the EIF Dinner Debate on 'The Impact of ICT on Health Services' on 1 February 2011 - WATCH VIDEO HERE. He reflected on the evolution of computing and technology and described how it is increasingly bringing a paradigmatic shift to several areas of societal importance, including health, ageing and other key societal challenges.

One of the central questions that lies within that is how the next generation of technology will improve the delivery of health services? This so-called data driven model of healthcare can dramatically lower cost while at the same time improving the quality. What are some of the main points that are key for future innovation and transformation of health delivery in Europe and globally?

One of the key elements is that the healthcare system needs to shift from a focus on 'transactional' care of patients when they are sick to real-time, lifetime health management. With an ever increasing human population there is a real need for better health information exchange, a focus on prevention and wellbeing, and quality of life of patients as well as independent living for elderly people. These are also themes that are high on the European Parliament's agenda as can be seen in the recent launch of the European Innovation Partnership for Healthy and Active Ageing.

Within the bigger global picture it is also of primary importance to underscore the importance of transatlantic collaboration (EU-US relations) in the area of eHealth standardization and interoperability and share learning from the US work. Mr. Mundie welcomed the recent signature of the EU-US Memorandum of Understanding on the interoperability of Electronic Health Records - HER - in that respect.

Privacy is of course a key issue within such a complex area as personal health information. It is however important to liberate the data withing that privacy model so that patients and health care providers can have access to it. Data-driven decision making is key in the health industry and the availability of the right information at the right time is critical to improving outcomes and reducing costs. Liberating data from existing silos allows for the creation of comprehensive, patient-centered views and supports patients as shared decision-makers in their care.

There also is an element of educating citizens. One has to shift mindsets and citizens' behavior towards wellness and prevention. While we tend to think of wellness and illness as opposites, health is actually a continuum from general fitness to medicine; from wellness to illness. Moving to a focus on lifetime health management means a need to provide tools for citizens to participate in managing their health across that continuum.

And to make all of the above happen, the creation of an enhanced regulatory framework which enables innovation and rewards experimentation, is needed. By encouraging the deployment of new business models and delivery systems such as Cloud Computing and by ensuring a flow of data across the health ecosystem within a secure, private and trusted environment. This will support new ways of delivering care (telemedicine, remote monitoring, etc.) to help address the triad of lower costs, higher quality and broader access to health.

To watch the videos of all the speakers click here
For more information about this event click here

THE DIGITAL EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: ICT CHALLENGES FOR THE MEP OF THE FUTURE

EIF online — 01 Feb 2011 16:32:50 +0200

New technological developments are spreading at an astonishing speed, and the European Parliament aims to keep up with the pace. The Bureau of the European Parliament has been reflecting on the impact of ICTs on the current and future work of this Institution and of the MEPs. Recently the European Parliament adopted a future oriented ICT strategy called MEP 2025. The main pillars of this strategy are mobility, interoperatibility and connectivity for MEPs in their daily work.

In this EIF Breakfast, MEP Mr. Rainer Wieland was looking for an open discussion to reflect on the long-term needs of a 'digital' European Parliament and the needs of its (wide variety) of stakeholders.

Part of the debate centered on the amount of openness of a 'digital' European Parliament. How much openness do we need? There was a plea for a balance between being open and transparent on the one hand, and also allowing the European Parliament to have private meetings to reflect on certain matters more freely. Streaming everything and anything might be too much of a good thing and might not be in the general interest.

One of the other issues for such a large organisation as the European Parliament is how to effectively organise document processing and content management to reduce the carbon footprint of the Institution. Although it is a good idea to make processes more efficient by creating less paper, one also has to consider such things as the security and integrity of materials. For instance, who has access to the list of tabled amendments and who has the rights to edit them? How secure would such a system be?

There was also a plea from the floor for making the work of the European Parliament more visible towards citizens, to use modern communication technology, especially audiovisual technology (video), to enhance the link with citizens. It was stressed that simply relying on having a European Parliament website would most likely not be able to fulfill this goal by itself.

Other suggestions that were made focused on good educational programs for the new ICT developments, to ensure that everybody has equal opportunities in using the new 'digital ways' of the Parliament. Mr. Wieland also mentioned that he would like to see a broader understanding of what Members of the European Parliament undertake on the job. He advocated creating a program that would aime to create a better understanding of what MEPs do on a daily basis.

To conclude, Mr Wieland emphasized that he believes the Internet is only an instrument and that the instrument cannot replace content. Some of the big questions in response to MEP 2025 must focus on this particular issue. The digital European Parliament still has many questions to consider.

For more information about this event or to listen to the podcast click here.

ONLINE ADVERTISING. PRIVACY AND THE TRUST FACTOR

EIF online — 07 Dec 2010 13:52:49 +0200

In an EIF event devoted to these topics, Jacques Bughin, from McKinsey & Company outlined the main findings of their study on online advertising. Internet users nowadays benefit from an ever-increasing range of free applications and services that are mainly funded by online advertising. They represent an alternative business model that brings revenues to advertising companies and content owners and at the same time offers free services to internet users. This model also presents challenges, in particular in terms of the privacy and anonymity of the users and the independence of the platforms sponsored by commercial ads.

McKinsey looked at how consumers value the free applications they receive via the Internet in exchange for advertising being displayed in one form or another on their monitors. The study found that while this is a concern of consumers, the perception of advertising disturbance with regard to online services is in line with other media, such as television.

On average, the price an Internet consumer is willing to pay to avoid those issues is worth only one-sixth of the total value derived from ad-funded Web services; Among the forms of disturbance analyzed (advertising interruption and use of personal information) users are most ready to pay for preventing advertising interruption, particularly ad banners.

There are two segments of users who value their privacy relatively highly. A narrow niche segment, one percent of users is privacy concerned, that is, they put a high value on a strict adherence to privacy. Another, more material group of users (20 percent), values privacy as much as it values Internet use itself. This segment features users who place an average value on privacy but a particularly low value on Internet use. It follows that stimulating more rewarding usage is at least as likely to generate higher user surplus as applying a higher degree of privacy controls.

According to the study, while disturbance from advertising interruption and fear of privacy misuse exists and must be acknowledged, more than 80 percent of current Internet users generate significantly more value from using the Web than what they would be willing to pay to eliminate those disturbances. Further, what they would be willing to pay in total is less than current online advertising revenue, making the economic equation of Internet innovation unsustainable. As a result, any potential focus on reducing disturbance should be weighed against the risk of reducing ad-funded user innovations online.

In the end, the crux of this entire new online advertising fuelled business model is based on trust. Or, in the words of Nick Wiggin from Ericsson,'it's about 'trust, trust, and trust'.' Brands should leverage the trust that they have with their clients but stay clear of what is called 'the creepy line'. many companies and social networks are moving towards this line. What is needed is and opt-out opportunity for consumers whilst at the same time managing their expectations and educating them about online advertising and privacy.

For more information about this event click here

To see the McKinsey study Consumers driving the digital uptake click here

REINVENTING DATA PROTECTION WITHOUT REINVENTING IT

EIF online — 07 Dec 2010 06:06:35 +0200

Several initiatives in the area of data protection are currently being discussed in the European Parliament. The EIF Dinner Debate on 'Data Protection' confirmed an urgent need for a common approach in this area and an international dimension to adequately respond to the legitimate concerns of citizens, businesses and administrations.

The world is shifting from a technology centric approach to an information centric approach. With more information out there in the cloud, on external data farms, there is also a greater need to protect that information and the individuals linked to it. Data protection is a matter of digital security but the opposite is also true, as Guido Sanchidrian from Symantec said: security and privacy build on each other. There cannot be sustainable security without building privacy and data protection into the technology.

Data protection is often mentioned as something technical but data protection and privacy are everywhere: in personal, private and business life. The recent Lisbon Treaty reiterated the right of privacy and it has given the European Parliament a more important role in this matter. With current initiatives on the table, the rethinking that is currently happening should have an emphasis on making existing principles work better and focus on the implementation. This is not the time to completely reinvent data protection, as Peter Hustinx from European Data Protection Supervisor said.

This also means we need to look at more intelligent ways to building privacy into services. We should strengthen the data subject, the person who is protected, and analyze his or her rights in a practical setting. The majority of these rights are not new (except for instance the right to be forgotten and data portability).

Another element in the discussion should be the (lack of) power and fragmentation of control authorities. These authorities are often weak or at least do not have the same powers in each member state. Rethinking data protection means getting it right from the very beginning. That means using the right kind of technology and ensure that privacy is built into the technology. There is an unhelpful legacy problem because the existing 1995 directive has led to national diversity. This blocks effectiveness and creates high costs. When the European Commission harmonizes this area again, it should provide a high level of uniformity without complexity (i.e. reduce administrative burdens).

Last but not least, one should not forget the importance of the underlying systems. As highlighted by John Crain from ICANN, the web was developed decades ago. Laws and protocols have to work across the network and this should be taken into account in the discussion as we are only at the beginning of the information revolution.

For more information about this event and to listen to the podcasts click here.

TOMORROW'S INTERNET BUSINESS MODELS: THE NEED FOR FAIR PLATFORM COMPETITION

EIF online — 19 Nov 2010 07:46:16 +0200

Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT Retail spoke at the EIF breakfast debate on 18 November (watch video here). Although applauding the re-launch of the EU27 single market, the Digital Agenda, the drive on Open Trade and the so-called Innovation Union, Mr. Patterson also made a passionate plea for ensuring a fair balance between market competitors and avoiding preemptive regulation.

Mr. Patterson believes that platform competition will deliver economic growth and that jobs will come from this competition. As such, he highlighted a couple of cases where he believes that fair competition is lacking. For instance, BT at the moment is hampered by not getting fair wholesale access to Sky premium film and sports channels, something BT deems critical to have a competitive offer in the (UK) marketplace. At the same time, Sky can access all of BT's broadband and copper networks and bundle it with content services. This is something that limits consumer choice at the best rate possible.

At the same time, BT is creating a new mass-market channel called YouView, an open standards network that allows TV to be delivered over broadband. Open standards refers to the fact that all content providers can provide content over this network. BT is working with ITV, the BBC, Channel 4 and many other companies to make this network a reality. UK telecom regulator Ofcom is helping to open markets to some extent, but not sufficiently in the words of Mr. Patterson.

Shifting from competition to social media, Mr. Patterson emphasized that user generated content channels like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the enabling technologies such as cloud computing, need nurturing and promoting. At this stage these services can do without heavy regulation. Of course there is a need for a common set of consumer protection and privacy standards, but within that framework one should let the market decide. The review of the data protection regulation in the EU would be a welcome opportunity to get things right in this area.

In his concluding remarks Mr. Patterson called for open access to the Internet, no discrimination and improved transparency across Europe for all market players, without putting rules in place that stifle competition.

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To watch the video of the speech click here

THE ROLE OF STANDARDS IN PROMOTING INNOVATION

EIF online — 02 Nov 2010 09:30:08 +0200

Standards are part of the equation to promote innovation. Think of the open standards of the Internet (HTML, HTTP) that allowed people to start building web based businesses. In the digital world such standards provide for connectivity and interoperability and enable critical mass effects in product and service markets, which allow in turn for trusted environments that both business and end-users need in order to contribute to the innovation dynamic/virtuous circle. The EIF breakfast on 27 October looked at the road ahead in ICT standardisation and innovation.

The number of different standards over the years has grown exponentially (think CEN, ISO and others). Now that the Internet is becoming more mature we must acknowledge that global integration will continue and that more digital natives will come into the job market. We are constantly trying to develop smarter and more intelligent solutions. Within areas like 'IT for green' and 'green for IT' for example we are creating physical structures that are overlaid with digital intelligence. This is how we monitor water supply, traffic systems and smart grids. This has all become possible because of standards.

What is needed to maintain and improve such innovations is a standards interoperability roadmap. We need to be able to use all the standards that are available for efficient integration purposes. Today we see ICT and IT standards from fora and consortiums that are not available in Europe in public procurement procedures because they do not meet certain criteria. It will be vital to draft such criteria together with the public sector to stimulate the use of such standards in public procurement.

Standards in ICT have a higher speed of innovation than other sectors. We see new ICT products daily and they can reach a worldwide audience in a very short time. Think of how Wikipedia became serious competition for the producers of proprietary software products on the market for electronic encyclopedia. Openness is at the core of this change. Crowd sourcing and co-creation have now become normal business processes. This means that we must adapt to this new environment of openness and that a new equilibrium needs to be found in how to deal with it. If we want to enable citizens to be able to innovate in the future, we need to be more open and collaborative and plan for the integration of technologies.

Industry has to work on a clear commitment of industry openness, taking leadership and supporting software interoperability by looking where it is best applicable and by looking at best practices. The EU is looking to change legislation on standards as quickly as possible to facilitate this process of making better use of existing standards and to support openness.

For more information about this event or to listen to the podcasts click here.

EU FUTURE TRADE AGENDA IN ICT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES READY TO ROCK AND ROLL?

EIF online — 02 Nov 2010 07:42:29 +0200

Trade in ICT products and services as well as the benefits for emerging and developing markets have become a top priority for the European economy. The role of ICT in economic growth and the knowledge and innovation economy is one of the key pillars of Europe?s 2020 strategy as well as of president Obama?s plans. The EIF dinner debate on 26 October provided a lively platform for both industry and the European institutions to discuss remaining problems and new opportunities in this area.

Market access to electronic communications has become a crucial part of the incentive to invest. However, access restrictions in some markets prevent companies from developing their full portfolio of services. In turn, this makes them reluctant to keep investing. The European Commission?s plan for future trade policy recognizes this and highlightes that trade and investment flows are key to the diffusion of innovation and new technologies. This means that one must look at trade as an enabling process and not as a hindrance. Technical developments however often move faster than the development of the regulatory framework.

On the services side, Europe is pushing for full liberalization of telecom and computer services in a technology neutral way. The worst thing that could happen is if market access became limited to specific technologies, like in cable versus satellite technology. In the area of goods tedious disputes withing the framework of the WTO on classification has now come to an end and Europe is seeking a strong review on the technology agreement in order to further bring down Non-tariff barriers (NTBs).

Trade barriers are not always easy to spot. In some countries for instance Voice over IP (VOIP) is not allowed which results in a patchwork of access that does not help industry nor consumers. Another recent example is the way that China prevented its citizens from accessing Google.com and redirected traffic to Google.cn. Such filtering can also be a trade barrier.

The future trade plans of the European Commission will be published on the 9^th of November in a Communication. The Communication should provide conclusions on the various negotiations like the DOHA round, bilateral negotiation conclusions and more continuity to the overall trade policy, with a focus on enforcement of existing agreements, a stronger emphasis on key strategic partners like China, US, Russia and Japan, partially on the NTBs.

For more information about this event or to listen to the podcasts click here.

OPEN STANDARDS AND OPEN INNOVATION NEEDED TO CLOSE ICT R&D INNOVATION GAP

EIF online — 04 Oct 2010 09:53:49 +0200

Europe's future prosperity and wellbeing partially depend on how well we succeed in closing the gap between ICT R&D and actual innovation. EIF hosted a debate on 28 September in the context of the 2011-2012 financial programme (Euro 2.8 billion) of the European Union for funding research and innovation in ICT. Speakers from the European Commission, Telef�nica, and Bell Labs gave their views on the theme.

ICT is becoming increasingly dominant in products, and at the same time indistinguishable from the original product. This will have a direct impact on policy making: if health products become ICT products then health policy becomes ICT policy. This will create a clash of cultures in policy making. It also has interesting implications for research from the angle of pre-commercial procurement because it means that the health ministry will invest more money into ICT research.

We need to keep in mind though that R&D does not equal innovation. Sometimes it does but most often innovation is not a direct output of R&D. It is not a linear process and therefore one cannot equate research with research policy, nor innovation with innovation policy. This kind of challenge means we need to look both at the technical side as well as the application side of things in research policy and not only at societal innovation. The current FP7 ICT part is quite well balanced in looking at both sides.

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are another key ingredient in closing the gap between research and innovation. The European Commission has recently launched a PPP on the Future Internet, with the aim of making Europe's systems smart and efficient. To place Europe in a comfortable position to do this we need to have open standards. Internet application development today is moving to fragmentation (and closed standards) among different platforms and ecosystems. Incumbents try to capture the whole community by having their own separate application stores. Although this fragmentation is a problem, it is also an opportunity for Europe to help application developers to create applications that run on any type of device.

The second necessary PPP element is stimulating open innovation. Nobody can predict the best applications for the future, that is why we need to setup a playing field based on technologies that would help people innovate. Cross selling is an important element to create such an open innovation eco-system. If for instance we can foresee a scenario where a giant like SAP integrates and combines its applications with those from small companies then both companies could sell more. From that perspective, we should also support crowd sourcing. The end user can really become a driver in creating innovation in the area of content and in a next phase also in the area of creating smarter applications.

Last but not least we need the ability to exploit all that information within the Internet of things. This is why creating innovative interfaces to the Internet of things should be high on our agenda. The current speed of ICT developments is moving at such a high pace that we can only predict that the future of innovation will be marked by disruption which by definition means that you cannot predict it. We can safely predict however that we are still at the beginning of the many innovations to come. How to accomplish them nobody knows but we know they are possible.

For more information about this event or to listen to the podcasts click here

CLOUD COMPUTING: DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY FOR CLOUDS?

EIF online — 30 Sep 2010 15:41:01 +0200

EIF's debate on 29 September focused on one of the hottest Internet topics of today: Cloud Computing and its regulatory framework. This framework has the potential of facilitating or undermining confidence in Cloud Computing. That confidence can only materialize when trust and security are in place. Only then will businesses, governments and consumers hop on the Cloud bandwagon.

Professor Ian Walden from London University explained that there are 4 regulatory areas where there is uncertainty in how the regulatory framework could and would apply to cloud computing. The first one is privacy. The privacy framework needs to become less bureaucratic. Compliance with privacy rules is still too costly between jurisdictions and therefore there is a risk of creating regional clouds by uploading European data into European clouds and American data in American clouds. This would be something that defies the Cloud business model and can hamper its growth.

Security is another key issue in Cloud Computing. In the Cloud, data is copied and distributed on multiple bases and this provides a robust computing platform. However, there are those that seek to attack data centers. That is why enforcement of security and spending money on such enforcement will be important. Transparency about the nature of security is also an essential element that needs careful consideration. For instance, if a service provider offers a backup of your local hard drive in the Cloud, but then states that they are not responsible should they lose your data, this would go directly against the spirit of what Cloud Computing is all about.

Last but not least, uncertainty still exists about the regulatory characterization of Cloud Computing. What is Cloud Computing? Is it an information society service or an electronic communication service? Currently there are no exact answers to this and other questions. This goes together with jurisdictional uncertainty. Governments, businesses and private users are concerned about the multiplicity of jurisdictions. Questions arise such as when and where do US authorities have access to EU data and when not?

Perhaps one solution to gain government confidence in Cloud Computing would be a system of data sovereignty based on diplomatic immunity. This would mean governments would still have access to information in the Cloud with sovereign control because diplomatic rules would be in place.

Learning by doing seems to be the best way forward. Mr. Nikos Kryvossidis, Engineering Director for Google's YouTube explained it with an interesting case study about jurisdiction and territoriality of copyright. YouTube had signed a contract with the Olympic Committee to make available clips from the Olympic Games via YouTube in certain territories, except for the U.S. In the U.S., NBC had the exclusive rights and therefore YouTube engineers developed a mechanism to prevent Olympic Games' clips from being seen in the U.S. Someone broke the protection system on YouTube and engineers had to work around the clock in the weekend to resolve the issue. Based on that experience YouTube created a content ID system to prevent distribution of illegal content by comparing uploaded content with a signature database. This system also alllows content control in particular jurisdictions.

For more information about this event or to listen to the podcasts click here

PREPARING FOR THE IGF IN VILNIUS: MULTILINGUALISM OF THE INTERNET

EIF online — 03 Sep 2010 07:08:03 +0200

Multilingualism on the Internet is crucial to make the Internet accessible to non-English speakers. EIF's breakfast on 1 September 2010 focussed on this subject as part of the preparation for the fifth annual IGF Meeting. Speakers from the European Parliament, the European Commission and Facebook gave their opinion on the role of multilingualism on the web.

An important part of the multilingual aspect of the web has been of course the Domain Name System (DNS). The recent internationalization of domain names now allows countries like Egypt or Saudi Arabia to have domain names in their native language instead of English. The technical challenge of this is that it is now possible to have 106.000 characters in domain names instead of 26. The DNS system itself has no problem handling this from a technical perspective, but it might prove problematic for the user. Security problems such as spoofing or phishing (impersonating an existing website) may be less easy to notice for example. IPR related issues such as trademarks might also prove problematic. Another issue will be the question of automatic translation tools. Would such tools (at a highly advanced level in the future) suffice or does one need an army of human translators to do the job?

These are all issues that affect EU citizens and it is crucial for Europe that we think them through and discuss them on an international platform like Vilnius. The challenges will be technical, social and political. The Parliament and the Commission are, for example, now working together with ICANN to look at Cyrillic and Greek as DNS languages, as it is important that countries can choose how they will be represented on the web.

This holds true even more so for the citizens. Facebook, available in over 70 languages today, can be said to be a prime example. The secret of the number of languages that Facebook is available in, is community translation and a modern web architecture. Community translation means that users are invited to help translate the site from English into their native language. The translations are voted on and the best translations make it into the final version. The web architecture is important because every piece of text on Facebook is held in a separate part of the database, making it easy to translate from a technical point of view.

The next IGF meeting will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 14-17 September 2010. EIF will hold a special session on 'Parliamentary Views on Europe's Digital Agenda'. This meeting, open to natianal parliamentarians and EP delegation, will take place on Thursday 16 September from 14.30 to 15.30 (room S1).

For more information about this event click here

To listen to the podcasts of the speeches click here

EIF 10th ANNIVERSARY MARKED BY A SPARKLING INTERACTIVE EVENT

EIF online — 22 Jul 2010 16:08:31 +0200

13 July 2010 marked the anniversary of the European Internet Foundation. The birthday was celebrated with a lively interactive event, and featured a special guest appearance by European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes, the publication of an EIF survey about 'Europe's Digital Future', and a live poll from Mrs Kroes about the digital Single Market in 2015.

Pilar del Castillo MEP and EIF Chair welcomed guests and friends at the event. She called into memory that 10 years ago the world was (mostly) analogue: iPods and WIFI did not exist. Today, policy making for the Internet is in full swing and EIF plays a substantial role in European, Transatlantic and global platforms for creating Internet policy in the 21st century.

Vice Chair James Elles recalled former governors of the European Internet Foundation and the crucial role they played in its creation. Several of them were present and spoke a few words congratulating EIF with its successes. Piia-Noora Kauppi, former MEP and EIF Governor sent a special video message to congratulate EIF.

Accolades were also sent by US Congressman Bob Goodlatte and by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee.

Mrs Kroes then was invited to take the floor and reflected on Europe's digital future and the results of the EIF Online Survey. The survey asked respondents to rank a set of 20 questions for the Commissioner from low to high interest. 189 people responded to the call to fill out the survey.

Mrs. Kroes asked for the help of the attendees to shape Europe's Digital Future. Malcom Harbour, MEP and EIF Governor, together with Mrs Neelie Kroes conducted a live poll (part 1, part 2, part 3) using a mobile voting system in the room to test the knowledge about the European Digital Agenda. Some featured questions: is it feasible to get 50% or more of European Households subscribed to high-speed broadband by the year 2015? Is level pricing across Europe for mobile Internet access a possibility in 4 years from now?

Ajit Jaokar of FutureText then discussed the way EIF shared its survey via a policy bloggers network to receive feedback from the blogging community. He advocated that such processes are highly useful for policy formation as they involve real communities outside the political framework.

The event ended with a giant EIF cake celebrating the next 10 years of building synergies within the Internet policy community.

Click here for more info on this event.

FUTURE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE INTERNET

EIF online — 30 Jun 2010 06:56:55 +0200

ICT will in many instances enable the development of future services and applications. EIF?s breakfast debate on 23 June focused on how these can drive growth and European competitiveness, and what technology is needed to be successful.

Future and emerging technologies for the Internet first and foremost require standards. That is what the IETF, the Internet Engineering Taskforce does. IETF is one of the stakeholders in the IGF debate and responsible for making the Internet work better, to phrase it in a popular way.

IETF is an open community, not industry led, where anyone with a bright idea can find a platform to help build that better Internet. People participate in IETF mostly on an individual basis and want to help the Internet architecture evolve. The group has a voting system to get consensus on the best ideas.

IETF has been responsible for some of the most widely spread Internet standards and protocols such as DNS, email, and IPv4 and IPv6. For Olaf Kolkman, an active participant at the IETF, it is almost impossible to predict the future of the Internet. In the 1980s people said that the Internet would never ?make it? as a commercial platform, similarly nobody could predict the success of VOIP (Internet telephony) before it took off. The main way for the Internet to grow is to maintain an open environment.

It is important that technology and standards developed today are interoperable. The technology needs to work worldwide. Also, industry should have a choice to opt in, but not create the technologies itself.

You can never be sure if a technology will take off before it is actually being used (look at the GSM standard that is currently being used by over 4 billion people). However some patterns can be identifies. There is a strong convergence between mobile and fixed Internet. One of the consequences of this is that mobile devices need to become more energy efficient. Hence, the circuits in the equipment have become an important part of future Internet technologies. Last but not least, security is becoming ? ever more ? a point of major importance because networks have become critical to countries, people, and wealth.

The good news is that Europe is not lagging behind. Europe is at the forefront of these technologies according to Emmanuel Darmois of Alcatel Lucent. Europe is a global and regional actor setting the pace for standardization.

The European Commission?s plans to double the budget for ?Future and Emerging Technologies? research by 2015.

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ICANN ? NEW ORGANISATION AND NEW CHALLENGES

EIF online — 25 Jun 2010 14:18:02 +0200

Rod Beckstrom, the CEO of ICANN was the keynote speaker at the EIF Dinner on 22 June 2010. Because of the technical nature of what ICANN does, Rod explained 'in plain English' what the unique roles and identifiers of ICANN are.

ICANN is firstly responsible for the domain name system. It is the coordination authority for domain names of the Top Level Domains. Today there are over 200 million domain names registered, connected through extensions such as .com, .eu, .net and many others. The country codes are managed nationally.

Secondly, ICANN is the central allocator of Internet IP addresses. Each day more Internet addresses are needed, and the old system of IPv4 is nearly full. Currently there is a transition process to the new IPv6 system that has trillions of addresses available. ICANN also coordinates this addressing with the regional registries,

On a third level, ICANN is responsible for the domain name system DNS. The DNS system basically allows us all to type in www.anything.eu and forwards us to the correct IP address without having to know what the IP address is. The same system also ensure that email gets addressed correctly and does not go to anybody it was not intended for. ICANN as such is involved in establishing the rules and policies to guard this DNS system.

Finally, ICANN functions as the parameters and protocol registry. These parameter settings for computers and networks are drafted by the Internet Engineering Task Force and published by ICANN as a public service. These parameters help to hold the Internet together, so that all devices can talk without problems.

Of course ICANN is also involved in the debates surrounding its mission to guard traffic and routing on the web. As such it has committees that deal with privacy, law enforcement, security (such as a secure DNS for instance). However it is not a driver of these debates.

Rod thanked Europe, the EU institutions and the MEPs involved for being such an innovator in driving Internet standards and praised the European Parliament for its Internet Governance Resolution.

To watch the video of this event click here

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FACTORY OF THE FUTURE FUELS EU COMPETITIVENESS

EIF online — 10 May 2010 10:57:44 +0200

The Factory of the Future in the 21st century uses state of the art ICT solutions to optimize almost any process from manufacturing and procurement to sales and administration. The EIF breakfast on 5 May 2010 shed more light on these ICT solutions.

ICT solutions have always tried to create opportunities for business collaboration. Companies such as Tommy Hilfiger for instance use SAP to have an instant overview in real time of their global business, connecting all kinds of business critical systems. Mike Day, Senior Vice President Operations & IT at Tommy Hilfiger explained that in reality this means that when somebody in a store in the USA scans a barcode of a shirt, this is registered on a server in Amsterdam, directly linked to the ordering system. This real-time aspect requires high-speed network capability.

With the advent of such high-speed communication channels, the company decided to go one step further and developed a new type of video conferencing called the Virtual Fitting Room to reduce travel cost within the company. Within the fashion industry, executives often travel between for instance New York and Hong Kong to test the quality of garments or to give modification instructions on a particular design. The virtual fitting room is a high definition video conferencing system that gives users (such as designers and tailors) a handheld high definition camera and allows him or her to show in great detail what modifications are needed without time lag in voice and video. The experience feels like an informal physically interactive meeting.

This allows reduction of the time to market a product; it also reduces working capital and risk because decisions can be taken in real time. When producing 25.000 designs for 4 seasons at a time, this is a significant improvement of the production process.

The EU, as explained from Hasan Alkas, Principal Economist at DG Enterprise is currently looking at this type of advanced manufacturing technologies. Partially motivated by the economic crisis, the EU is exploring how to use ICT to best reshape key European industries. There is consensus that the old paradigm where Europe does the creative process, whereas manufacturing takes place in the Far East is no longer sustainable.

This is why Europe needs a new industrial policy perspective. The European Commission is therefore looking at the key enabling technologies (such as robotics and carbon capture storage systems) that would allow Europe to create new process, product and services innovations. By 2011, a high level group will advise the Commission on the technologies that are both high-tech and enabling, with the aim to create crossover multiplier effects for European industry.

Mike Day (Tommy Hilfiger), Rick Laanen (BT) and Adrian D Cheok (University of Singapore)

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MIXED REALITY: ICT SOLUTIONS FOR A CHANGING WORLD ECONOMY

EIF online — 10 May 2010 08:25:24 +0200

The 21st century requires new and innovative ICT solutions to solve real world problems. Whether in education, shipping, energy, or retail, the EIF dinner hosted on 4 May 2010 in cooperation with STOA showed that a Digital Single Market requires a mix of innovative solutions to be practically manageable.

According to Prof. Cheok of the University of Singapore, never before has mankind been confronted with a new technology that is changing our lives so drastically. For better or for worse, in the 21st century we are able to constantly communicate on a global scale. Children growing up now are part of the so-called Net generation. They think in multichannel mode. Where most grownups focus on single tasking, today?s children can actually multi-task; they own zapping, texting, chatting, all at the same time. Schools are underestimating the new Digital Kids. Old methods of linear teaching with textbooks are wasted on the Net Generation (why read about a dinosaur if you can look at a moving 3D image of one?). New educational approaches will therefore likely use a mixed reality approach to satisfy the mind of the individuals of the Net Generation.

Like individuals, companies are also changing rapidly. Examples of this were provided at the dinner by Mr. Rasmussen from SAP and Mr. Hess from DHL. If as a company you want to survive in the 21st century, you need ICT driven logistics to be cost efficient. This is pushing many industries to go where they have never ventured before. Mail companies for instance are now creating research and logistical centers and help their clients by developing web-enabled services. They write software for their clients and create solutions allowing them to know the exact physical location of their shipment every minute of the way. RFID chips are used to perform this type of tracking. RFID chips can sense if a container has been opened along the way or if the environment inside it has changed in humidity or temperature. This allows for example early detection of a pharmaceutical shipment going off, or food being exposed to too high temperatures. The moment this is detected, a shipment in transit can be stopped and a new shipment can be dispatched immediately.

The patchwork of local regulations can sometimes become a real-world problem to even the most innovative ICT solutions however. The retail industry for instance, is pushing towards a so-called multichannel approach. Besides selling to consumers in shops, they are exploring the use of the web as a major sales channel. Partially this is not yet profitable because supply chains are not yet merged. Another explanation however is the high number of local regulations retailers have to comply with in Europe. You can optimize the logistics of transportation through ICT all you want, but if you take goods from the North of Europe to the South your return on investment might still be low if regulatory compliance costs an arm and a leg.

A true Digital Single Market is extremely important for Europe to remain competitive. Industries after all tend to invest where it makes sense. Care should therefore be taken not to discourage initiatives in the early stage of net development. New ICT solutions should be applied (and allowed to be applied from a regulatory point of view) wherever they bring advantages, whether in energy-efficiency solutions to stimulate smart metering or in pharmaceutical processes to optimize testing phases.

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VIDEO GAMES AID SMART LEARNING IN SCHOOLS

EIF online — 19 Apr 2010 10:02:36 +0200

At a recent EIF breakfast debate, participants discussed about how video games are used in schools for a variety of educational reasons. A recent study called ?Games in Schools? looked at how games contribute to the curriculum in learning. The study shows that games increase the motivation to learn, and that they are often used to enhance teamwork skills, provide insight into math and logic, and teach geography, ICT, or audiovisual skills.

One of the main objectives of the study was to find out what the obstacles are to integrate games into the curriculum. Some at the top of the list include the lack of computers in schools, a persistent negative attitude towards games, lack of time to actually use them in class, or the cost of buying them.

Different countries use games for different purposes in their educational systems. For example, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are at the forefront of integrating games into their educational systems, but with interesting differences in approach. In France, games are most often used to give support to pupils in difficulty (remedial teaching), in the Netherlands they are a tool for modernizing education. In the UK games are a tool for innovation and the development of advanced skills whereas in Denmark they are a tool to prepare future citizens for the virtual worlds present in society.

Integrating games into the curriculum also requires new skills from teachers. A game by itself is only a tool and it is important to use games in schools in a way that allows teachers to test if pupils actually did acquire new skills. Careful planning of evaluation methods is therefore crucial to successful integration in modern teaching.

New studies are currently looking at how to further optimize the integration of video games in smart learning educational approaches.

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E-SKILLS CORNERSTONE OF KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY OF THE FUTURE

EIF online — 16 Apr 2010 05:55:18 +0200

IT systems have become the central nervous system for almost any company today. With it, IT jobs have radically changed and are now much less technical and more business focused. This requires different skill sets and people who can grasp both the business and the IT side in a job at the same time ('dual thinkers').

The problem is that there is a shortage of such e-skills in organizations, and that job vacancies cannot be fulfilled because of a mismatch between education and business reality. The European Commission in 2007 made a broad proposal to strengthen Europe's digital literacy and inclusion, both for practitioners and for citizens.

In Europe there will be a shortage of 400.000 IT people at some stage in the near future because less people are graduating in this area. On top of this, in 5 years from now, 90% of all jobs will have an e-skills component. Similarly, citizens need to have the skills to use IT effectively. The good news is that overall, e-skill levels are increasing in all groups of society. The bad news however is that 36% of the population in Europe still has no ICT skills at all.

E-skills truly are the cornerstone of the knowledge society of tomorrow and Europe is taking action to increase e-skill levels across the board. Right now there are over 200 Europe-wide events promoting e-skill development and targeting young people. In addition, an INSEAD-led consortium has developed curriculum guidelines that include multi-stakeholder partnership promotion, an e-competence framework, an e-skills and care portal, analysis of the impact of global outsourcing, and fiscal incentives.

At the business level, companies like Microsoft have started programs to help train students to meet the demand for IT skills in SMEs in Europe. Through partnerships with for instance universities, the company enables smaller organisations to hire talent with the right IT skills, something which they could otherwise not afford.

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HOW ICT CHANGED THE BALANCE OF POWER FOR EUROPE

EIF online — 12 Apr 2010 10:34:24 +0200

Ben Verwaayen, CEO at Alcatel-Lucent gave an inspiring speech at EIF's dinner debate on 6 April about Europe?s role in a new world driven by ICT.

Only 5 years ago, the world had predictable business models. Today, the old business models are dead. Consumers have become global shoppers, while image has overtaken words as the main means of communication. Nobody knows yet how to monetize the new world business model but we can safely say that Europe is no longer in the lead.

We lost the lead because new forms of collaboration have changed the world. Today, collaboration can happen independent of geographical location. Only 10 years ago, the majority of patents were still created in the West. Now this is no longer the case, and this is how India, for instance, became a superpower.

What we know today is that ICT has become the most important differentiator for productivity in the world. If we look at productivity improvements we estimate that 50% of these are created by ICT use itself, 25% by the education of the people using ICT and their skill sets, and 25% by the policy created by policy makers. How do we best leverage this mix of productivity improvements?

There are of course more questions than answers at this moment in time: how can we make sustainable policies if we don't know how new business models will develop? What we do know is that our future competiveness will depend on Europe being in the lead (or not). The challenge will be to convince investors, who already have doubts about the new business models, that they can make safe bets in Europe.

What Europe needs is true leadership, a breakthrough moving away from the old world. We need to use our leadership skills to create earning capacity for a new generation.

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Digital Dividend: rate of return higher if Europe succeeds on spectrum policy

EIF online — 29 Mar 2010 11:25:08 +0200

The use of spectrum frequencies is a crucial input into the development of several major EU policies. It touches on the European economy and competitiveness as a whole. Pearse O'Donohue (Head of Unit 'Radio Spectrum Policy', DG Information Society and Media, European Commission) made it clear that what is to come will not only disrupt old models, but that the Digital Dividend also extends beyond the usual suspects such as the cable operators, TV broadcasters, and mobile phone operators.

The digital dividend is not the property of any sector, he reiterated. It is a public good that has to be managed to the benefit of society. That means taking all platforms into account and to have a broad look at horizontal policy in the spirit of the 2020 vision. As such, it is vital in the discussion that Member States agree on a date to switch off analogue broadcasting in the 800 MHz spectrum by 2012. This is the only way to create the economies of scale that will bring about lower network costs and standardized consumer equipment.

The international dimension of the debate is another crucial element in making spectrum policy a success. Spectrum does not stop at borders and therefore the EU must coordinate its position within ITU. What Europe must realize is that spectrum policy is a developmental policy that will have to be discussed and negotiated over time. We must ensure that we do not create a framework that causes problems in 5 or 10 years. Similarly, operators need a stable framework to safely make the investments needed for wireless broadband.

Manuel Kohnstamm (President of Cable Europe and Managing Director for Public Policy and Communications, Liberty Global Europe) made a similar plea urging to act on spectrum issues and added that interference needs to be considered into this debate as a serious issue. Interference is a loss of signal or connectivity caused by other devices in the close proximity of a TV that have an overlap in the same spectrum. If the screen goes blank in the middle of an important football match, nobody will ask who owns the spectrum, consumers will simply be unhappy, he illustrated. However, no single user should carry the financial burden regarding interference.

Ross Biggam (Director General ACT ? Association of Commercial Television in Europe) gave the broadcaster perspective. There are currently 7,200 broadcasters in Europe and the average European citizen watches over 3.5 hours a day of TV in real time or on demand. His view on the opening of the 800 MHz band was that if neighboring countries are willing to clear the spectrum band then that is great news. His concern however is that European media markets have been frustratingly difficult to harmonize. Spain for instance has a broadcast model where spectrum allocation is regulated at both federal and regional level. This could mean that less spectrum may be available in Spain for instance, a part of the discussion which needs to be taken into account.

Harald Geywitz (Representative of GSMA Europe and ECTA, Head of Government Relations, E-Plus Gruppe) reflected on the planned auction of spectrum in Germany in the near future. He pondered the question about the impact on the competitive situation in the market after such an auction, and whether it will create a precedent at the European level vis-�-vis affordable prices for universal broadband access.

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Embrace the mobile future today, for consumers will not wait for the right legislation

EIF online — 29 Mar 2010 10:38:49 +0200

In 2 years from now people will spend more time on their mobile device than they will on their pc today. The message at the EIF dinner on 23 March was clear: consumers won't wait for legislation and the only way to create a true digital single market is to embrace the mobile future.

2009 was a crisis year altogether in economic terms perhaps, but John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, said that in that same year e-commerce on eBay and PayPal grew 10 to 15%. In 2010, this year, he forecasts that it will grow yet another 20%. The driving force behind this growth is simple: the Internet offers consumers more choice to buy goods 24/7 at ever-lower prices. SMEs, thanks to new technology, can now sell beyond their local communities and reach a world audience.

When mobile commerce finally arrived everybody was surprised that it came in the shape of the Smartphone. The Smartphone allowed consumers to grab control. The technology was simply the enabler that helped small developers create the applications consumers needed to make more informed choices. eBay launched its iPhone application in December 2008 and within 12 months sold 600 million dollar in volume through it, including 100 cars.

Mike Short (Vice President, Research and Innovation, Telefonica/O2) added that we should not forget that 20 years ago there were only 11.3 million mobile phones in Western Europe and today this number has grown to an impressive 4.6 billion. Today?s mobile and smart phones do not only need more bandwidth, but also partnerships in the industry to innovate in the best possible way and make services widely available. The central question is how to actually deliver the information economy.

To make the information economy real we need a Europe 2.0 approach, with more digital literacy taught in schools. The demand in new areas requires looking at how the telecoms and ICT industries should be working together. Automotive and transport should be connected to create Internet enabled cars that help safer driving and lower road congestion. Similar approaches are needed in education and skills, healthcare and assisted living vis-�-vis the ageing population, a connected democracy and an increase in confidence and trust. Obviously more spectrum is needed to deliver on this.

Roberto Viola (Chairman of the 'Radio Spectrum Policy Group') visualized the problem by saying that as we speak, one Apple a day will crash the network today. Broadband connectivity has changed from being a serious issue into an emergency. The United States have pledged to become the world leader in wireless technology and want to free 500 MHz of spectrum for broadband. The question is: what are we, in Europe, doing? If we do not focus on action we will soon have problems. If we want to avoid these problems we need to focalize the action. One element of this is to release spectrum simultaneously in all member states.

If we do not, scenarios will develop where country A offers 800 MHz service and country B does not. This is obviously a nightmare scenario for creating a sustainable business plan. At the same time, we need to inject focus into the European research program and focus on simple ideas. 800 MHz spectrum today is still tied to the agreements of the television of 40 years ago, a world that does not exist anymore.

Regulators should work together and use a collective help mechanism to get the best expertise around Europe and solve specific problems. Spectrum regulators still meet to discuss how spectrum should be used between the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands, isn't that strange in a Europe without internal borders?

Finally, there is the international dimension. Can Europe speak with one voice or not? Can we help countries by using the Lisbon treaty to escalate spectrum issues to the right level? Broadband is and will remain a hugely important matter for our society. We are talking about the future of Europe.

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COMPELLING CONTENT FOR SMART GROWTH

EIF online — 26 Feb 2010 07:39:18 +0200

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Mats �kerlund, Head of Digital Strategy of Swedish Radio was the first speaker at the EIF breakfast on 24 February 2010. Swedish Radio and TV has been a major player on the Internet in terms of innovation and can be heard via a whole range of distribution channels, such as FM, on demand, and of course online.

Mr. �kerlund said that one of the blessings is that old radio works perfectly well on new media such as Internet. The important aspect is to ask what value can be added from a content and an innovation point of view in the online channel?

Mr. �kerlund foresees a strong future for online radio and presented a range of reasons why. First, of course, is that the computer is a radio and that therefore there is one in every pc and laptop. The users have freedom of space because the Internet is global and you can listen to your local radio station wherever you are in the world. At the same time the Internet brings the possibility to have more content and unique channels segmented even for special interests such as political debate and other channels. Freedom of time is another advantage of Internet radio. FM programmes are streamed online and can be retrieved in a 30 day web archive. In addition podcasts are made available for download as MP3 files, so people can listen to them wherever they want. Mr. �kerlund also mentioned the new 3G and 4G smart cellphones which are ideal platform for online radio with new smart applications and geo tagging. Interactivity of online radio allows users to see what other programmes have been selected by listeners and which programmes are most popular. Everything becomes searchable because of the application of meta data to each programme. As a result, content has a longer lifetime and further reach.

The game is yet to begin however, according to Mr. �kerlund. Mobile will become extremely important for online radio as will be further innovations, but for now the future of radio will be both FM, direct terrestrial broadcasting and online.

The second speaker of the morning was Jesus Badenes, CEO of the Spanish Publishing Group Planeta. Mr. Badenes addressed the question of how to create compelling content for economic growth. In broad terms, he cited the obvious need for an adequate legal environment, investment capacity in financial terms, an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the right commercial environment.

The good news, in his words, is that 7 out of 10 of the largest publishing companies are European based. However, the content creation industry is fragmented, it has no market power, it is not sexy and faces strong competition in very fragmented markets. It is important to consider that there need to be consistent incentives for companies to create content. If people steal that content there is nothing left to give away. In other words, piracy is a real danger to the future of quality content creation.

The dynamic of the ecosystem has dramatically changed, Mr. Badenes argued. Search engines, telecom companies, the consumer electronics industry, companies like Nokia, Sony, Apple and new content distribution companies such as Amazon have created a new role for the content creation industry, as the latter provides traffic to these companies. From his perspective, Mr. Badenes does see such companies as partners and not as enemies, because they can help in the distribution of content and hence his company would be willing to share revenue as partners in the value chain.

However we should be careful not to overhaul the licensing system too much or allow piracy to continue, as this will affect future quality content creation. We should not forget that out of all the billions of books created, only 10.000 of these are responsible for 50% of the market. To conclude, Mr. Badenes called upon the European Parliament to maintain an Intellectual Property Rights system that keeps the right balance between content creation and content distribution, building in mechanisms to foster cooperation.

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COMPLETING THE DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET: WHAT STRATEGIES DO WE NEED?

EIF online — 26 Feb 2010 07:32:14 +0200

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Pilar Del Castillo, MEP and EIF Chair opened the EIF dinner debate on completing the Digital Single Market (23 February 2010) by providing a perspective from the European Parliament. As rapporteur on the new Digital Agenda for Europe in 2025 she made a clear statement that indeed we do not yet have single digital market. Only 7% of e-commerce transactions in the EU are currently cross-border because the digital market is still fragmented by national legislation. Mrs. Del Castillo for example mentioned that rights holders and online service providers need to spend far too much time and money on the administration of rights, whereas consumers can often not access content if uploaded in other member states. As a consequence, the potential for M-Commerce is left unexploited. Especially in a time of financial crisis, the digital arena can be a great booster for the economy, she said. In order to do so however we need to look again at the framework of directives such as Data Protection, Electronic Signatures and Electronic Commerce and update these Directives. They are crucial for further developments in the Digital Single Market, such as the free circulation of online content.

Detlef Eckert, Director, Lisbon Strategy and Policies for the Information Society of DG INFSO shared some remarks and ideas about what he personally thought we should be thinking about. In his opinion it is all about balancing different interests. The telecom framework is now in place but this does not mean the end of telecom issues. The spectrum allocation issue for example is still a hot topic. But on top of that, the real problem is that Europe is fragmented and the Digital Age makes this fragmentation very clear; the borders are disappearing and regulation in the policy areas is not catching up quick enough. Mr. Eckert urged Europe to ?wake up?. Reality in the telecoms market is that there are good elements to it, but that it is divided by national borders and not by business decisions. As examples he mentioned that spectrum allocation is national. The same is true for license allocation: If you own, as a pan euro player, stakes in other operators you have to deal with 27 different regulatory regimes. The question we might ask is: why do we have roaming in a truly single market? We should not forget in Mr. Eckert's opinion what the cost is of a ?non-Europe? in the telecom market. He advocated that there should be a report about this.

In the area of broadband we can let the market decide and let private operators roll out broadband. The problem is that very often broadband has high value for a society similar to roads or airlines. This led Mr. Eckert to suggest that maybe the benefits of broadband are not factored in into the private return of investments. The stock markets, in particular in this crisis, are not very keen on subsidizing or supporting the social value of broadband because they wonder about the return on their investments. Mr. Eckert believes however that this return is in the society and in all the online services that make out the digital single market.

The other extreme is to say that infrastructure at the end of the day needs to be run by governments. Mr. Eckert proposed that we need to find a middle way where in particular we need to look at a number of factors that lower the private return on investment. One of these factors is cost. We should combine forces and bring in some public money in areas where investments alone are not profitable. Last but not least Mr. Eckert focused on the fragmentation of copyright licenses in Europe, and closed off with the words that Europe needs a united European legal framework that encompasses copyright.

Mr. Erkki Ormala, Vice President, Business Environment at Nokia said that the advent of new interactive types of personalized semantic services will forever change the digital landscape. The market growth in this area is predicted to be gigantic but to harvest economic returns from it, all stakeholders and consumers need to commit to making it a success.

For example, the Commission launched a study about ordering goods and services from another EU country. The results show that a large majority of providers is not able to deliver the requested goods or services because they have no legal certainty. The same occurs in the area of data privacy. There are more interactive services and the law prescribes that we need to protect private data. If you transfer that private data into a cloud outside the EU for instance, you have to notify your clients, and you have to do so in every single Member State. The cost of notification is roughly half a million Euros per Member State. When businesses become successful they therefore often move to the USA.

Mr. Ormala also advocated for copyright reform. A recent UK government exercise to invite the most important licensing organizations to a gathering, resulted in a total of 300 showing up. That means that if you would like to launch a Europe-wide service for selling copyrighted services, you would have to negotiate with 27 times 300 players. Mr Ormala also advocated reform in the copyright levy. The new telecom package requires that different costs are made explicit to consumers. But, he argued, copyright levies are not visible in these fees.

Sebastian Brandis, Chief Operation Officer, BT Germany and CEO, BT Austria started his speech by saying that we need to try to truly understand what the Digital Single Market is going to be used for. The key challenges according to Mr. Brandis, are that we need to maintain the productivity advantage we have over other regions and transform our society into true sustainable development. Mr. Brandis stated that productivity is generated by intelligently combining the network services and logistics to create productivity gains for business. (He mentioned the example of a coffee shop that is automatically being supplied because of an intelligent supply chain network that measures when coffee needs to be replenished in the store). The first lesson we can learn from that, he said, is that ICT delivers productivity gains primarily in the b2b sector and that intelligence of the network is key, the network itself is not creating the productivity.

Another example is that it is the intelligence of the network that creates the productivity gains and not the pipe itself. For instance, if your pay tv provider knows your profile when you call, then the very fact that you get routed to the right person with the right skills is because your operator has invested in creating an intelligent network of connected call centers. Using the intelligence of networks can generate a productivity gain of 15%. As such, ICT in the business segment creates opportunities to build a sustainable society, for example by having true Virtual Video Conferencing, where it appears you are sitting next to each other despite a distance of thousands of mile. This saves money, time, and fuel.

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INTERNET GOVERNANCE - FEEDBACK FROM THE 2009 IGF IN SHARM EL SHEIKH

EIF online — 29 Jan 2010 09:32:32 +0200

The EIF breakfast debate on Tuesday 26 January focused on feedback from the Internet Governance Forum in Sharm el Sheikh. Catherine Trautmann, MEP and EIF Governor, and Head of the EP Delegation to Sharm el Sheikh, was the first speaker of the morning and provided context to what had been discussed during the Forum.

A major outcome of the recent IGF is that a majority of governments, except China, believe that the IGF as a multi-stakeholder platform is successful and should continue. The next meeting of the IGF will take place in Vilnius in Lithuania from 14 to 17 of September of this year. This will be the last IGF meeting in the current cycle.

Mrs. Trautmann strongly advocated a continuation of the process even after Vilnius, as she firmly believes that this multi-stakeholder approach is the right one. She emphasized that now is the moment for the European Union to provide topics and contributions for such a continuation, and recapped some of the topics that were at the top of the agenda during Sharm el Sheikh: identity and privacy versus security, net neutrality, cloud computing, the Internet of things, multilingualism, city domain names, green ICTs, child protection. Mrs. Trautmann also mentioned that ? if IGF continues after Vilnius - there is support for holding the next IGF in Kenya and referred to a meeting of the European chapter of IGF (EuroDIG) in Madrid in April of this year (29 ? 30 April).

She also addressed the evolution of ICANN and its competences, saying that ICANN in the eyes of the European delegation should be confirmed as a private organization, and that from the perspective of the EP delegation, there is no need for a new organization.

Alice Munyua, Coordinator at Kenya ICT Action Network - East African Internet Governance Forum/Kenya IGF, was the second speaker of the morning. She began by saying that the East African region has for a long period of time not been on the map for broadband Internet access. Kenya wanted to reverse this trend and take leadership to bring the east African countries into the information society and into the IGF, she said. This is why the East African Internet Governance Forum was set up.

One of the aims is to balance cyber crime, and to benchmark how the region is doing in comparison with other countries. The East African IGF discusses (local) issues that are typical for the region like access and development. The most important issues in EAIGF are different from the ones encountered outside the African region, she explained. For example, country code top level domains still need to be properly dealt with. Kenya is probably most advanced is this area. Getting good models for managing TLDs and cybercrime is key to the discussions and the future of the Internet in the region. Language is also an important issue, given that there are 45 languages in Kenya alone. Managing electronic waste is slowly starting to get on the agenda as well, as is consumer protection in the light of the increasing access numbers.

Mrs. Munyua advocated the need for policy to create the right legal environment. She mentioned that as of 2009, there has been a program to target policy makers, to make them understand and contribute to the Internet governance processes. This is a must, if effective legislation is to be put in place. At the same time, politicians in the region need to understand the multi-stakeholder system of IGF, and the uptake is relatively slow in her view.

Kenya hopes that in the new IGF, if it is decided to continue the Forum, there will be a more concrete role for the regional IGFs, and to have more representation in the development of the IGF program. She also made a plea for developing funding for regional IGFs via the local private sector, and to ensure that democratizing Internet is seen as a priority. EAIGF also supports the ICANN changes with a focus on how the institution can become more international than it has been in the past.

Fr�d�ric Donck, Director European Regional Bureau of the Internet Society was the last speaker of the morning, heading the new regional bureau of ISOC. He mentioned that ISOC is a strong believer in an Internet ecosystem, and that IGF is important in that system. He commented on the logistics of Sharm el Sheikh, saying that it was great there was an increase of sessions, but advocated shorter meetings and a more concise format and reducing too many simultaneous sessions.

Another comment referred to a perceived need to create a more stable platform for remote participation, and to promote this possibility. In addition, IGF should ensure that non native English speakers can understand what is being said through better translation services and native speakers realizing that they should slow down during their speech. Mr. Donck observed that the content and the level of discussion is now more mature, which also means that more time is needed to come to conclusions in workshops.

In his closing remarks, he mentioned that there may be a need for a new IGF format to facilitate deeper understanding. Perhaps it would be an idea to have a driving theme each day, he said? The afternoon could then be used as a main session to report about the inputs from the workshop in a plenary format. For the future Mr. Donck suggested as a theme: Internet Governance for Sustainable Social and Economic development for the next five years.

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THE DIGITAL PRIORITIES OF THE SPANISH PRESIDENCY - EIF DEBATE WITH SPANISH SECRETARY OF STATE FRANCISCO ROS PERAN

EIF online — 27 Jan 2010 17:30:07 +0200

Fransico Ros Per�n, the Spanish Secretary of State responsible for Telecommunications and Information Society, was the special guest at the EIF dinner debate on Monday evening 25 January. He is responsible for the Digital priorities of the Spanish Presidency until the end of June and shared his views with the audience, followed by a lively discussion between the Presidency and EIF members.

Mr. Ros Per�n gave an overview of what the Presidency hopes to achieve in the coming months. He emphasized that the next five years will be crucial to put in place a new digital strategy for Europe to replace i2010. New models are going to be required in the political sector and the social sector, and Europe must understand this or it will lose opportunities, he said. The cornerstone of these new models is to realize that ICTs are indispensable to sustainability and efficiency for Europe's success.

Mr. Ros Per�n believes that Europe is losing ground in the ICT area. For instance, in telecoms equipment manufacturing, European companies have little presence within the ICT businesses of the new era (limited presence on search engines, digital content platforms, design and production, digital content for multimedia, high definition, video games etc.). At the same time, Europe does not educate a high enough number of experts that will be needed for the ICT sector and related industries in the near future. The people we do educate often leave Europe for other regions of the world to find more interesting work than what they can find at home in Europe.

Europe only has a small window in time left to gain ground in these areas, and Mr. Ros Per�n pointed out that all regions in the world are already very proactive in these areas, making this small window a top priority. Europe has recently started doing the same as can be seen in the Digital Agenda of Mr. Barroso, and the Presidency aims to work closely together with all those involved. Spain aims to do the following in the next months:

Work with the industry on the basis of the common views presented by the industry in a common document (as was recently published)
Creating an action plan based on the main priorities
A strategic plan 2010-2015; a plan that should address all the issues at hand (from cloud computing and education, to spectrum issues and many others.)
Facilitating investments on infrastructure and platforms by European companies to avoid a digital divide.
Create a European charter of user rights. The Internet users have to feel safe and therefore trust and security (cyber security) and IPR are elements that need to be addressed beyond the national level.
Focus on Digital content and services and use the opportunity given by the diversity of Europe
Last but not least: a single digital market

Spain is -as we speak- creating proposals together with stakeholders and all governments. At the same time the Spanish Presidency is discussing several of the issues, like governance, spectrum, broadband, universal access and net neutrality in an Atlantic context.

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Andrew Keen, bestselling author of 'How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture' speaks at EIF event

EIF online — 08 Dec 2009 07:10:48 +0200

Andrew Keen, Internet entrepreneur and bestselling author of 'Cult of the Amateur, how Today's Internet is Killing our Culture', gave an intriguing speech at the EIF breakfast debate on 2 December 2009.

Like in his book, Andrew does not hide that he is a web 2.0 skeptic. He explains that in the 1990s, web 1.0 was all about using a new technology to maintain traditional business models, music being the best example. Music was sold in the traditional way on a new medium, but there was nothing really innovative about the business model.

However, web 2.0 is about much more than just using a new technology: it is the first real manifestation of the digital revolution and Andrew believes that Google is the first real web 2.0 company. Why? Because Google has a completely different business model that is truly revolutionary (unlike the music business in the 1990s). Every time we use the Google search engine it becomes more intelligent. Like Wikipedia, there are no editors, there is no hierarchy, we create web 2.0 collectively.

In a similar way, Andrew foresees social media becoming competition to traditional political networks and eventually becoming a new way of doing politics. The nature of the entire web 2.0 culture is that it flattens the hierarchy: a blogger has the same access to publishing as the editor of the Financial Times for example.

This is where Andrew's skepticism kicks in, because with everybody being so-called equal, we also start believing that everybody can make films or newspapers, but the truth is that professional filmmakers and professional newspaper editors know how to add value to their products, to a much larger extent than a 15 year old kid will ever do.

Andrew strongly believes that the values we have in the real world should be applied in the virtual world. The Internet is just another form of society. There can be no room for anonymity if we want the Internet to prosper; people should reveal who they are, and similar to the real world people should not only be coming to the web to take what they want, but also to think about what they can bring to it.

Andrew's next book is a political and cultural critique of digital society and will be called 'Digital Vertigo, the Inequality, Loneliness and Anxiety in the Social Media Age'.

To listen to the podcast of this event and for more info click here

THE FATHER OF THE WEB SPEAKS TO EIF MEMBERS ABOUT THE CHALLENGES OF THE INTERNET

EIF online — 03 Dec 2009 09:14:26 +0200

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was the honorary guest at the European Internet Foundation on December 1 2009. His speech and discussion with EIF members and friends took place over a dinner in the Solvay Library in Brussels. The event was organised in cooperation with STOA Annual Lecture.

Sir Berners-Lee talked about the future of the World Wide Web and emphasized that it is important to keep one web with a single URL system (although he did not exclude the possibility of (for instance) http2:// in that respect.

He also referred to the paradigm of a new world driven by mass collaboration (as also put forward in the EIF publication ?The Digital World in 2025?). He argued that we have no models for this new economy of mass collaboration because today, the economy has become the web; and if we do not understand the web, then we do not understand the economy.

The web has, however, become much more than its technology; this is studied by what is called 'web science'. Web science tries to look at both the technical and the social pieces of how the enormous complexity of the web is changing our world. Very few people imagined that Wikipedia would come into existence. Sir Tim Berners-Lee argued that although this is made possible by the http:// technology, it is the social part, the interaction between two or more people that makes all these new ideas become possible. The best way to look forward is to realize that the web is made up of people, and you have to understand the motives of the people.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee ended with the bigger picture of the web. How do we make the web multilingual? How do we make people understand it is a two-way street (that blogs are not only for reading but also for writing); is the coming year the time to show a big moment of leadership to change the web? All were put forward as questions. His advice was to think about the answers in the way you want the world to be in 2025, and then think of Europe?s role in getting it there.

To watch the video of this speech click here

For more info on this event click here

For more info on Sir Tim Berners-Lee at STOA click here

From left to right: Malcolm Harbour, MEP; Catherine Trautmann, MEP; Cristina Monti, EIF Director; Sir Tim Berners-Lee; Pilar del Castillo, MEP and EIF Chair; James Elles, MEP and EIF Chair; Maria Rosa Gibellini, EIF Assistant.

EIF dinner at Solvay Library, Brussels

Copenhagen Climate Conference and the Role of ICTs - 11 November 2009

EIF online — 16 Nov 2009 14:40:07 +0200

The EIF breakfast meeting on 11 November focused on the advent of the Copenhagen climate conference and the role of ICTs in helping to reduce carbon emissions. Two excellent speakers gave their vision on the future role of ICTs in climate control and energy efficiency. Chris Tuppen, Chief Sustainability Officer at British Telecom and co-editor of the SMART 2020 Report talked about the role of ICT in realizing a de-carbonised economy, and Nicola Villa, Global Director of the Connected Urban Development Program at Cisco, who gave an overview of ?Smart and Connected Communities? through case studies of how cities in Europe are embedding ICTs to support sustainable urban infrastructure and planning.

Chris Tuppen of BT explained that for the ICT industry there are two angles to the discussion about carbon emission reduction. The first angle is the carbon footprint of the ICT industry itself. The second is the use of ICT to reduce carbon emission in other economic sectors. Mr Tuppen explained that the ICT sector is currently responsible for producing two percent of total global carbon emissions and is working hard to reduce this by a range of initiatives. These initiatives include virtualization in data centers but also ideas to decrease waste production by producing a universal mobile phone charger that can be plugged into any model mobile phone. These initiatives could reduce the carbon footprint of the ICT industry by an amount equal to current carbon emissions of the US or China. ICT can also create synergies to help other economic sectors reduce their carbon output. Using ICT applications in industrial processes, increasing the use of smart grids, or using ICT in buildings, logistics, and transport will have a major impact on decreasing carbon output over time. Such new technologies focus on transforming the way in which applications connect. Mr Tuppen concluded by advocating a holistic approach to the low carbon economy to ensure a sustainable framework.

Nicola Villa of Cisco then presented an overview of the Cisco Urban Connected Development program (CUD). CUD is a partnership between the cities of Amsterdam, San Francisco, and MIT (and new cities around the world who are joining the program regularly). The program focuses on the effect of increased connectivity on the life of citizens, and monitors its impact on mobility and transportation, energy efficiency, and urban planning. The overall thought behind the program is to see how energy efficiency and climate change initiatives can create economic development into local communities. Mr Villa mentioned a range of examples. In Amsterdam, Cisco developed a project to reduce traffic on the highways by creating smart work centers at the borders of the city that connect people via high speed internet connections; this allows workers to work from these centres instead of going to their offices in the heart of the city. Another example is a project in Madrid where Cisco connected buildings and apartments using ICT solutions to combine and regulate energy sources to increase energy efficiency.

For more information on this event click here

Smart Politics: Digital Policy Priorities for the European Union

EIF online — 11 Nov 2009 22:27:32 +0200

EIF?s breakfast debate on 4 November 2009 hosted two speakers who presented their perspective on digital policy priorities for the European Union. Mr Ken Ducatel, Head of Unit - INFSO C1, Lisbon Strategy and i2010 of the European Commission; and Mr Ziga Turk, Secretary General of the Council Reflection Group on the Future of Europe.

Mr Ducatel was the first speaker and discussed some of the main priorities that the Commission is focussing on in the digital regulatory landscape; these are connectivity, services, the low carbon economy, and skills and employment.

In the area of connectivity, one of the aims is to guarantee 100% broadband connectivity in Europe by 2013. With regard to services, the Commission recognizes that Europe is failing to perform because the single market does not work flawlessly in a digital environment yet. The Commission is currently carrying out a large study to look at the entire ?acquis? to establish improvements in this area over time.

The Low carbon economy is another EU priority in which ICT can be of great value, not only by creating low carbon footprint hardware, but also by providing the software that is needed to measure carbon output and to help define standards in this area.

Mr Ducatel finished his speech by discussing e-learning and e-skills, areas that are underdeveloped in Europe. In his opinion, the available skill base in Europe needs to be repurposed to ensure that greater digital literacy is created.

The second speaker, Mr Ziga Turk, discussed the forthcoming report of the Council Reflection Group on the Future of Europe (on his own behalf). The main challenges for Europe according to Mr Turk can be summarized in a group of challenges called A, B, C, D, and E. The A stands for the Abundance of industrial and other cultural products, B refers to Bricks and signifies the process of globalization, C is the challenge of Climate change, D signifies Demography (maintaining quality of life and economic growth with a declining population) and E the Economic crisis we are in.

The 'sun' (renewable and green energies), the people and the European Union are the resources that we have to meet these challenges. According to Mr Turk we are underutilizing these resources. What is needed is a transition from a coal and steel union to one based on sun and bytes. The abundance economy is another and different challenge. The creativity of people should be used tackle this problem. By having leaders who empower others to go into this process together, Europe will stand a chance to meet the ?digital? challenges it is facing.

For more information on this event click here

Priorities for Internet Governance - 14 October 2009

EIF online — 20 Oct 2009 15:18:53 +0200

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Sharm El Sheik in Egypt is around the corner and the European Internet Foundation invited three high level speakers to comment on the state of play of the IGF as well as to provide thoughts about the future of this platform.

Henrik Hansson of the Swedish Presidency; Michael Niebel, Head of Unit "Internet, Network and Information Security" in the European Commission; and Nick Thorne, International Relations Adviser to the President and CEO of ICANN; all three provided their vision on the IGF.

The Swedish Presidency kicked off acknowledging that it would be important to speak with a single European voice at the IGF. The Presidency also mentioned support for the continuation of the IGF in the future as a non-decision making body and an open platform for discussions. Sweden is currently preparing a EU guideline statement for the IGF.

Michael Niebel raised the question whether or not the IGF will continue and, if yes, in what form? He put forward that the EU has expressed an interest in continuing the debate as long as the same, multi-stakeholder, non-binding approach is followed. In that way, the EU believes that IGF success can be continued. For many, the IGF is a one-stop shop on Internet issues, where you can learn and exchange ideas and that within that appears to lie its strength.

Nick Thorne from ICANN emphasized that the IGF process is under threat and that it would be in Europe?s interest to maintain the IGF process. He focused on a document named the so-called AOC (Affirmation of Commitments), a document signed between the US government department of Commerce and ICANN that confirms the multi-stakeholder approach. Thorne advocated that the multi-stakeholder element should be extended to stronger participation from national and European Parliamentarians.

For more information on this event click here

Article about the Forum of Fora in European Parliament Magazine

EIF online — 01 Oct 2009 16:59:32 +0200

European Parliament Magazine published an article about the networking cocktail of the three Fora. These forums give parliamentarians the chance to meet, and debate with, experts in their field. Forum events are designed to illuminate arguments, test solutions, and help MEPs reach the right decisions. Representatives from the European commission and the permanent rep- resentations are also regular participants in these events. Key players in the sectors concerned provide the resources and organisation, but the forums do not take policy positions or lobby for any particular outcomes.

Read the full article: click here (PDF file)

2nd September - EIF Networking event opened by Barroso

EIF online — 14 Sep 2009 16:47:19 +0200

On 2nd of September the European Internet Foundation, together with the Forum for the Automobile and Society and the Financial Forum, organised a networking cocktail to re-launch their activities at the beginning of a new Parliament. Mr. Harbour MEP and EIF Governor opened the evening and welcomed Mr. Barroso, President of the European Commission, who spoke about the important choices Europe needs to make to climb out of the crisis and make Europe competitive again. Mr. Barroso acknowledged the important role of the parliamentary fora in helping this process by bringing together the various stakeholders.

For more information on this event click here

For the European Parliament Magazine article about the Forum event click here (PDF, popup in new window!)

Socio-political Aspects of the Digital World in 2025: towards a European Identity Platform

EIF online — 28 Apr 2009 17:06:40 +0200

"Tax website shut down as memory stick with secret personal data of 12 million is found in a pub car park" headlined a recent newspaper article. It is one of the tangible ways for us to understand how important digital security has become in today's society. The Breakfast debate at EIF on 15 April focused on that subject matter and Prof. Dr. Reinhard Posch discussed how a strong European Identity Platform protects and helps privacy in a global Internet-powered knowledge-based economy.

It is obvious that in order for the Internet to be useful to us all in society it needs to be a safe and reliable environment for everybody. We know as well that today this is not the case. Spam is 98% of all email that is going around, and if we order something online we can sometimes be unpleasantly surprised by the added local taxes added to the bill, which the sender omitted to report when we bought the product.

What eID is offering is a secure zone where providers guarantee that only services of cooperating jurisdictions are available. It would allow mail or downloads from non-trusted servers being restricted to non-active content if the user decides this or even fall back to text only email. In such a secure zone users could profit from the rich possibilities of web 2.0 without risking exposure.

Professor Posch explained that by 2010 all European citizens, businesses and administrations will be able to benefit from such secure means of electronic identification (eID) that allows people online to enter secure zones where they can be sure that their privacy is respected and where they can make use of services without fear of getting attacked by malicious software or fraudsters.

The eID is completely different from the kind of ID that travel documents represent. When citizens pass the border control in a country travel documents are checked for inspection. Electronic ID on the Internet has a different function. When we go to the Internet we go there to do something, i.e. to consume a service or to buy a product, whereas if we pass a border we do not engage in any willful acts.

The fact that we are still missing a quality eID has severe consequences. Let's take an economic example. One study shows for instance that when something goes wrong with an Internet banking transactions, a high proportion of customers would leave their bank to find a more secure bank. What is interesting about this is that the consumer would not really be open to discuss if it was their pc or Internet connection that may have been at fault or if, for instance, the bank had a temporary Internet outage. No, instead customers, especially those over 50, would rather leave the bank than take another (perceived) risk. Only building digital trust can avoid such scenarios in the future.

Currently the EU is funding projects to test eID such as "SaferChat", "eID electronic delivery" and "eID change of address" mechanisms that would allow for easier authentication and verification of transactions. Possible future directions could be a "European Citizen Card" but the question is if our society is already ready for that level of detail at this moment.

For more information on this event click here

The Digital World in 2025: Socio-Political Aspects

EIF online — 27 Apr 2009 16:33:50 +0200

Online mass collaboration has the potential to trigger and shape significant changes in the way future societies will work. What are the implications of an improved empowerment and engagement of individuals, groups and communities? Three speakers shared their vision on this subject: Mr. Ziga Turk (Secretary General of the European Council "Reflection Group on the Future of Europe"), Mr. Henri Serres (Managing Director of Information Systems and Communication at the French Ministry of Defence) and Mr. Ajit Jaokar, Founder and CEO of Futuretext.

Mr. Turk kicked off the dinner debate by talking about the role of Government in the Digital Society by 2025. He started by explaining that we are moving into a conceptual economy where function is overtaken by meaning. The function of a concept or product ("thirst quenching") becomes less important than its meaning ("is it the original Coca Cola?"). Talent creates this meaning, and the current communications revolution stimulates a kind of mass collaboration that allows more people than ever before to share their talent with the world via web 2.0 platforms.

Political systems follow these new communication technologies. The better the communication technology, the more people get involved into the process of democracy. Milton Friedman said "government should decide when people do not have information to decide for themselves" which today is of course a no brainer: information is literally all around us. This will impact the role of government strongly. The portion of educated people working for the states keeps decreasing and "the majority of smart people is outside the government." The key question will become: how can governments, states and business make use of all those smart people, with all the information and knowledge available to them with a few mouse clicks?

The answer to this is to stimulate open innovation and to reinvent government in a web 2.0 way. Government will become a platform for people so that they can add value. Government as such becomes a place in the middle instead of at the top of a pyramid, not a decision making body but a coordination platform among stakeholders. What the government should do is to empower talent, and to gather talent around its structure. At another level governments will also need to ensure net neutrality and provide law and order specifically when it comes to security and safety, but also in terms of property rights. The issue of property rights will become a big one because new property is often not tangible but in the realm of (intangible) ideas and the sharing of these ideas. The central question about this kind of property is what the most productive way is for governments to handle them.

Cyber Security Aspects in the Digital Society by 2025

Another vital element of the socio-political dimension is cyber security. Mr. Henri Serres painted an intriguing picture about this subject. We all know that today there are intentional attacks on computer networks. Even the home pc has to be protected by antivirus software to not get infected. With the whole world being computerized and ICT being the true nervous system of our western economies there is a big potential for destabilization. Think of disrupting power plants by attacking their ICT or so-called "denial of access" attacks that make a network simply unavailable. Such attacks can also have a negative impact on the military capability of a country.

Reality is that society is ill prepared for such attacks. This is because cyberspace is fundamentally different from physical space, it is in a place where there are no frontiers and people can be anonymous. What types of attacks are governments expecting? Anything from the physical destruction of satellites, neutralization of computer systems, data theft, or tampering with data, to hostile control of systems such as your own pc.

It will be the role of the state to develop a fighting capacity in this space and to define the rules of engagement. Cyber warfare strategies will be developed with the help of hackers. Of course these will not be government employees but let?s call them state sponsored hackers.

Security is however a concern for all parties. Businesses rely on secure networks and privacy as do ordinary consumers. The answers cannot be only of a technical nature. We need a strong government response. At the same time, companies need to reduce the vulnerability of transactions and individuals must ensure that they do not become part of a bot network by attacks on their own pc. Trust is the word to look out for and it should be addressed globally. It will not be sufficient to only create these efforts in Europe alone.

The 3rd speaker, Mr. Ajit Jaokar talked about the Economic and Social Aspects of Blogs in the Digital Society 2025.

Mr. Jaokar kicked off his speech by asking the audience what their most trusted news source is. He himself switched from The Economist to YouTube as he outlined that with a channel like YouTube you get all the perspectives, you can look at everything and use your own brain without any editorial control being enforced on that process.

Then here comes the question: what is the most trusted blog? But in fact you should never trust a single blog. If you are not looking at many blogs together you are risking of going back to watching tv in a way. Blogs are personal perspectives that you subscribe to. In that sense newspapers should start carrying a health warning according to Mr. Jaokar. "This newspaper is left wing" for instance.

Mr. Jaokar predicts a bright future for journalists because they are in essence bloggers. This also makes the newspaper model more and more difficult to sustain, to keep together all these bloggers under a single umbrella of a newspaper.

People often ask what a good blog consists of and the answer to it could be summarized as follows: in the UK in Hyde Park there is a speakers corner that you stand up in and talk about anything. If you can stand there and get an audience then you have a good blog. The future of the blog will be a social artefact. The sculpture of the thinker. In 2025 we will be thinkers, we will all be forced to think and to make choices.

For more information on this event click here

Meeting with Craig Mundie, Microsoft Chief Software Architect

EIF online — 17 Apr 2009 16:12:05 +0200

If we look back in time we can see that email software and browsers made the Internet popular. These technologies are now part of daily life. Since major innovation shifts happen every 10 to 15 years, the question is to predict the next "wave". Craig Mundie, Microsoft's Chief Research Software Architect visited EIF on 2 April to talk about Microsoft's view on the next big developments in areas such as healthcare and education and about future prospects for the software industry.

Two major developments in the foreseeable future are the arrival of much faster microprocessors (100 times faster!) for the same price as today's with the same power consumption. The second major development is the large-scale use of distributed or cloud computing. All that new computing power will lead to an Internet that will morph from a publishing vehicle to a programmable environment. At the same time, the actual computing power of the pc (also called "client") will become much less important. What will emerge is a new composite computing environment, composite in the sense that there will be a union of the pc and the cloud in some new hybridized platform.

Irrespective of platform, Microsoft is focusing its energy on 2 specific areas of software development: healthcare and education. Large amounts of money in our societies are spent on healthcare and education but often with unsatisfactory results and calls for improvement of existing models. If we first look at education, we can conclude that in fact less than 25% of people on the planet are currently using all this computing power and more advanced information technology. The Internet of things however can change that if people in less advantaged areas of the world can receive the right education. Microsoft is trying to develop a (software) model in which the poorer areas of the planet will get the tools to improve their own productivity and capability to create sustainability.

What can software do to help improve education? Many studies show that lecturing to people is not an effective mechanism. Retention of information in a lecture only model is limited to roughly 35% of the material presented. However, if you add a level of interactivity between the student and the professor, the retention goes up to 65%. In the past, creating interactive software was too expensive but today it is within reach. Microsoft's team in India developed software that allows plugging up to 50 mice into one computer. In rural village schools they now buy one mouse per child for one dollar and put all children around the table with a projector at the end. Each child?s mouse has their own unique cursor that allows them to collaborate by moving their cursors. By building classroom training around that concept significant changes in the level of participation and learning are being made.

Similar new developments are happening in healthcare. We are at a transition point for medicine, perhaps the biggest in one hundred years. Medicine is about to go from analogue to digital just like so many other things. One big challenge in health care from a software point of view is to keep medical records. If you can combine records of individual medical history with actual intake of medicine you can achieve real benefits for the individual and for society. One of the applications that emerged from this is based on the needs of the medical community and called "hospital in a box", an a la carte menu of integrated software solutions. In the consumer space, Microsoft developed "HealthVault" which is an online secure private repository for personal clinical medical records controlled by the patient himself. An additional software toolkit for researchers allows utilizing medical data and more advanced methods of prediction to aid prevention. Such software will have the potential to dramatically reduce medical costs.

To download the transcription of Craig Mundie's speech CLICK HERE

The Digital Economy in 2025: A European Industrial Property Strategy for the 21st Century

EIF online — 24 Mar 2009 18:14:03 +0200

On Wednesday 18 March 2009, the EIF organized a breakfast meeting about a European Industrial Property Strategy for the 21st century. Speakers were Margot Froehlinger, Director of DG Internal Market D (Knowledge-Based Economy) from the European Commission, and David Benjamin, co-Chairman of the Steering Committee of BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).

Both speakers talked about IPR as the backbone of the digital economy of the future. If we look at the big picture, already more than 10% of the European GDP comes from IPR (all IPR produced in Europe taken together). If Europe wants to keep its place in the knowledge based economy then it will be vital to maintain innovation and stimulate investments in research and R&D in Europe. If we don?t do this we risk leaving innovation to other economic players such as the US or Asia.

In that respect the quality of our IPR system is going to be vital, as is the relationship between IPR and competition policy. Secondly, Europe is much behind in terms of awareness building about IPR in universities and ensuring that SME?s understand the true workings of IPR. On yet another level Europe needs to tackle the issue of Internet law enforcement (and not only Europe given the global nature of the network). Enforcement is a fight of the mind in the sense that it is about changing the mindset of people to respect IPR and to refrain from stealing IPR. In relation to that, a European IPR Observatory will be launched in April which will be a collaboration between the European Commission and Industry. Its aim is to improve data collection about IPR use and abuse and to create a deeper understanding of the economic impact of IPR. Finally, European businesses and consumers must feel that it is safe to do business over the internet, hence the EU must effectively tackle counterfeiting and piracy.

It is not an easy task to accomplish all of the above. The Internet has started out as a free haven for communication and this has brought many positive changes, but, as David Benjamin of BASCAP pointed out, internet lawlessness makes true competition on the Internet impossible and would stifle growth of the Internet based economy. One needs guidelines that will truly be enforced, and work towards a ?rule of law? for the Internet economy. Education about IPR will likely be the only way to truly create a paradigm shift about the value of IPR. Chinese kids in school from the age of 5 get educated about what IPR is and how it is important to respect it. In Europe this is not happening (yet?). The real struggle as such seems to win the battle in the mind of the people.

For more information on this event click here

The Digital Economy in 2025: Europe's Role and Weight in the Global Digital Economy

EIF online — 24 Mar 2009 18:00:52 +0200

What will the global digital economy look like in 2025 and what will Europe's role and weight be in the world at that time? 3 distinguished speakers reflected on this subject during an EIF dinner debate in the European Parliament on the 17th of March. G�rard Pogorel, Professor of Economics and Management, Paul Hofheinz, President of the Lisbon Council, and Larry Hirst, Chairman for IBM in the EMEA region all gave their vision about a future Europe in the new economy.

In 2025, we will live in a smarter world because we will be able to obtain information and knowledge from everywhere. This will lead to new models of economic value. If we want a strong Europe within this new economy it will require that we become 'sustainably smart'. Combining smart leadership, smart investments, smart spending and smart laws to drive the new market.

We have to understand that companies in the new market will have lower margins because of lower prices for products and services (driven by much increased market transparency), and will be forced to focus more on generating new business. At the same time, customers will become like co-producers and companies will invest less in their in-house capacity. The growth of online mass collaboration will also be a factor in these new economic developments.

To be competitive in 2025, Europe should put money in creating innovation and not look at preserving old economic and legal standards. Curiosity based research at Member State and EU level would bring us closer to such an improved innovation system. Europe has great people, great engineers, but we seem to be less good in getting the right people together. There seems to be a gap in strategic design, as one of the speakers put it. In this respect we should also understand the key importance of the right educational framework, to make sure that Europe's people are 'fit for the future'.

Finally there is the question of the legal framework to support business. Technology has dramatically sped up possibilities for offering services and products, and it is becoming increasingly hard for regulators to keep up with the pace of technological innovation and implementation of an adequate legal framework. We should realize that technological advances are only at an early stage and as such it will be crucial for Europe to create or be part of a regulatory framework that is predictable to ensure businesses and consumers feel that they can operate in a trusted environment.

For more information on this event click here

Meeting with Stephen Carter, UK Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting

EIF online — 04 Mar 2009 12:09:23 +0200

Lord Carter, the UK Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting visited EIF for a dinner debate on March 2 to share his views on the opportunities for Europe to be proactive in the internet society and about a new UK report called 'Digital Britain'.

"Digital Britain" tries to identify how to create the right conditions for next generation network capability for wired and wireless networks and poses questions on how to build a legal framework that will allow right-holders to accommodate their interests while at the same time keeping the interest of consumers, who today can get any type of content anywhere on the Net. The 'Digital Britain' view is that this should be a universal proposition.

The "big prize" for governments, according to Mr. Carter, would be the digital delivery of public services, of making sure people have access to information, and to put them in control of the services they are getting. Many of these ideas have already transformed businesses, but not yet governments nor the delivery of public services, and this is crucial he said. The minister remarked that in that sense these networks are failing to deliver what should truly be the basis for them.

He emphasized that the EU has a tremendous chance with agreeing on a European framework for this sector right here and now, but that this will not happen if there is no common view on why this industry sector is so important. The minister continued by saying that we can have the ambition of having a strong European Internal Market but that we then must provide the means to businesses to have a harmonized market. Only this will allow Europe to compete on an international level.

Google does not have to ask 27 countries for permission nor 52 US States and that is the same for every American player. Mr. Carter put forward that some people see the next phase of the Internet as taking it away from American control. And if they do see it that way, he continued, then there is no better way for the EU than to give people a platform to exploit the potential of a major developed market outside the US: namely Europe.

Mr. Carter highlighted that the businesses in the Internet sector that are looking outwards are logically not going to be the broadcasters or the content providers because they are -historically- focused on national culture and territory. Instead, the ones that will be looking outward are going to be the network businesses, the application business, the service providers, the equipment manufacturers; and Europe should ensure a level playing field for these businesses.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Carter said that Europe has the opportunity to get it right in the forthcoming Framework Directive, but only if we let go of reservations and decisions taken on the basis of protection. We should imagine that we do get it right this time with 4G, Next Generation Networks or Universal Service -to name but a few-, and move towards fully interoperable Internet at high speed.

To see Stephen Carter talking about the Digital Britain project on YouTube CLICK HERE

Cloud computing and the convergence of networks and services

EIF online — 27 Feb 2009 16:46:23 +0200

Cloud Computing is an increasingly popular subject and the EIF organized a special event around it on 17 February. Three speakers from Cisco, Google and Ericsson demystified Cloud Computing and looked at different perspectives on the major trends, potential benefits and challenges surrounding these technologies that will affect Europe and the world in the coming years.

Cloud Computing seems a relatively new concept, but we are already part of the Cloud Generation. If you have ever used a search engine, put your photos online to share with friends, used Facebook, or stored any files on a website, then you are already using Cloud Computing.

The road to a new level of Cloud Computing will see what is called a convergence of networks and services. The services we use will become more virtual in the sense that storage, processing and the actual operating system used will be located in one (or several) datacenters instead of on a home or office PC. When we say that these services will converge with the network itself in the future, we mean that the network itself becomes more intelligent and part of the service. Networks will be able to connect services from a number of locations together and dynamically decide how to transport data over the network and deliver it to the end user. This whole process called virtualization is capable of vastly improving business continuity and efficiency by providing on-demand services.

At the same time, Cloud Computing will ensure that we always will have access to information and services over the electronic highways, wherever we are. Our browser will become the portal to the Cloud and will allow any consumer or business to create, share and access content.

As a result, the scale of mass collaboration will increase and change the way we communicate, do politics or business. For instance, innovations are now first happening in the consumer space (look at the rapid development of Facebook applications for example) and feedback from users has become instant. For businesses, the use of mass collaboration through Cloud Computing will enable cost savings and help small businesses to compete at an equal footing with much larger enterprises. Mass collaboration via the cloud will also generate dramatic reductions in time-to-market for a service.

The challenges to overcome at the policy level are however numerous in this new model. Do you trust your data in the Cloud, or what if the network would be down? In terms of infrastructure there is another challenge: Europe needs to be careful to ensure that it does not lag behind in creating the fiber infrastructure that is needed. This will require investments of around 300 billion Euros. In the area of radio frequencies another challenge awaits, which is the re-farming of the radio spectrum to ensure that all devices can seamlessly and wirelessly connect to the IP Cloud and that we achieve fast last mile access to the home.

In 2025 Cloud Computing will no doubt be as common as having electricity in the house, but the steps we take today in debating these new technologies and the policies surrounding it will be of crucial importance to create a sustainable Cloud.

For more information on this event click here

EIF Meeting with Intel's Chief Technology Officer: Justin Rattner

EIF online — 12 Feb 2009 17:09:10 +0200

Justin Rattner, Intel's Chief Technology Officer, provided a fascinating look into the future of the microchip over an EIF breakfast meeting on the 28th of January 2009. Mr. Rattner emphasized that the digital revolution is young and that new developments will not be linear but exponential. Progress will be faster than ever before in technology. 'In the next 100 years we will experience as much technological progress as we have in the last 20,000 years'.

We will see new applications of microchips like wireless sensor networks, chips embedded in the wall using short range radio that are not wired to power sources but that harvest their energy from the energy surrounding us. These chips could for instance measure the temperature of the room and switch appliances on or off. New chips also will become ? even ? more energy efficient, which is a necessity in a world that will be powered by billions of them.

In healthcare, other new microchip developments will allow monitoring of people?s behavior or location and could -for example- be beneficial for an Alzheimer patient. Such a chip would register what a person is doing or has done: if they have eaten, if they sit or walk and where they are located. The chip then sends this information to a monitoring facility that could take action in case of irregularities. In the same area, new DNA sequencing chips will allow instant blood analysis for a particular DNA strand for patients.

In the big picture, we will see an ?Internet of Things? coming our way that will have gigantic proportions in terms of the number of devices that we will connect to this Internet, ranging from cars to the fridge or microwave in your kitchen. Each person may have well over 1000 ?radios? on them that are continuously connected with the Internet. Apart from being a tremendous opportunity and an improvement of our lives the advent of such technologies still poses many challenges like spectrum frequencies regulation for instance.

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EIF Dinner on the Internet Governance Forum: Follow-up on the Hyderabad meeting

EIF online — 12 Feb 2009 17:05:33 +0200

The European Internet Foundation organized a dinner discussion in the European Parliament on the 20th of January about the outcomes of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Hyderabad in India at the end of last year. The event in Hyderabad was attended by over 1280 participants from 90 countries and as such is one of the largest and only international platforms for Internet Governance that is open to all stakeholders in this matter.

The EIF event about the IGF featured speakers from the European Commission, Nokia Siemens Networks and Nominet UK. All gave a perspective on IGF outcomes. There was large consensus that in order to be successful in Internet Governance, a new and integrated approach is needed to internet issues. An approach that should focus on sharing best practice to come to innovative solutions, raise further awareness for these issues and increase multi stakeholder involvement. On the latter, one speaker noted that it is crucial to make sure that what is shared in the IGF is heard by the stakeholders who were not able to come to Hyderabad. There also was a call for more Parliamentary involvement from both the EU side and the national Parliaments, because it will be the members of the Parliaments that have the potential to reach the majority of national stakeholders.

Other discussions centered around important (and common) themes such as the protection of children online, the future of ICANN, crime reduction, privacy, security and access. All participants and speakers agreed that the IGF is a highly useful forum to get a closer understanding of the complexity of these issues and for developing ideas 'that work' to create sustainable and future oriented Internet Governance. The next round of the IGF will take place in Vilnius in 2010.

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EIFonline

HORIZON 2020: TAKING THE LONG VIEW TOWARDS A MORE COMPETITIVE EUROPE

OPEN DATA: THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT CAN MAKE INNOVATION HAPPEN!

Publishing News in the Digital Era: the Quest for Free Independent Quality Journalism in Europe

FUNDING ICT INNOVATION AND THE ROLE OF VENTURE CAPITAL: THE ENTREPRENEUR AS THE NEW EUROPEAN HERO?

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AN EVENING WITH ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATORS: ?YES WE CAN!? IN EUROPE

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THE INTERNET AND THE CONSUMER: HOW TO AVOID KILLING A MOSQUITO WITH A BAZOOKA?

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BUILDING THE FUTURE OF E-FINANCIAL SERVICES: IS MOBILE THE NEW 'PLASTIC'?

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THE IGF IN TRANSITION: KEEPING THE MULTI-STAKEHOLDER DREAM ALIVE

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MAXIMIZING THE POTENTIAL OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY: TOWARDS THE GLOBAL CLOUD

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INNOVATIVE ICT MODELS PROPEL DEVELOPING AND EMERGING ECONOMIES

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IGF IN A TIME OF CHANGE: TIME FOR A NEW DEAL?

eEU27: COMMISSIONER KROES CALLS FOR POLICY BOOST OF DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET

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ENCOURAGING INNOVATIVE SMEs IN ICT: 'GIVE ME A SINGLE MARKET!'

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WHO PAYS THE INTERNET? DINNER WITH ED VAIZEY

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TRANSATLANTIC CYBER-SECURITY: ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL

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From top left to bottom right: Ivailo Kalfin MEP, Eric Loeb (AT&T), Robert Bell (US Mission to NATO), Eva Lichtenberg MEP and Edit Herczog MEP

A SMARTER EUROPE FOR ALL: SMART GRIDS, SMART POLICY!

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CLOSING EUROPE'S DIGITAL BROADBAND DIVIDE

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BROADBAND FOR ALL: THE BATTLE FOR SPECTRUM IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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AMBIENT-ASSISTED LIVING: HOW ICT ASSISTS THE ELDERLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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HOW THE WEB TRANSFORMS TV (BUT NOT AS WE THOUGHT IT WOULD...)

GLOBAL HEALTH: A VISION OF E-HEALTH SERVICES IN THE FRAMEWORK OF AN ENHANCED EU-US COLLABORATION

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THE DIGITAL EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: ICT CHALLENGES FOR THE MEP OF THE FUTURE

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ONLINE ADVERTISING. PRIVACY AND THE TRUST FACTOR

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REINVENTING DATA PROTECTION WITHOUT REINVENTING IT

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TOMORROW'S INTERNET BUSINESS MODELS: THE NEED FOR FAIR PLATFORM COMPETITION

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THE ROLE OF STANDARDS IN PROMOTING INNOVATION

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EU FUTURE TRADE AGENDA IN ICT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES READY TO ROCK AND ROLL?

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OPEN STANDARDS AND OPEN INNOVATION NEEDED TO CLOSE ICT R&D INNOVATION GAP

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CLOUD COMPUTING: DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY FOR CLOUDS?

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PREPARING FOR THE IGF IN VILNIUS: MULTILINGUALISM OF THE INTERNET

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EIF 10th ANNIVERSARY MARKED BY A SPARKLING INTERACTIVE EVENT

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FUTURE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE INTERNET

ICANN ? NEW ORGANISATION AND NEW CHALLENGES

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FACTORY OF THE FUTURE FUELS EU COMPETITIVENESS

Mike Day (Tommy Hilfiger), Rick Laanen (BT) and Adrian D Cheok (University of Singapore)

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MIXED REALITY: ICT SOLUTIONS FOR A CHANGING WORLD ECONOMY

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VIDEO GAMES AID SMART LEARNING IN SCHOOLS

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E-SKILLS CORNERSTONE OF KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY OF THE FUTURE

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