European ICT News

Two years after the evaluation of the first EU-Brazil Coordinated Call on Research and Development Cooperation in the area of ICT, which resulted in five EU-Brazil joint projects in five areas, the Commission launched a second EU-Brazil Coordinated Call which closed on 17 January 2013.

For its 10th anniversary, the Future Internet Assembly (FIA) held in Dublin on 8-10 May attracted more than 600 researchers and business people from Europe and overseas – the most attended FIA ever! It strengthened its position as a key stakeholders’ event, at a time when the Future Internet has many untapped opportunities for European players.

Participate in this Intelligent Transport System key event and learn about the latest development in terms of innovation, solutions and deployment. 'All regions face similar challenges in delivering sustainable transport solutions to meet their current and future mobility requirements. Transport authorities are aware of the real needs specific to their region but often find it difficult to identify detailed information on targeted ITS solutions that would deliver direct and tangible positive outcomes. The primary focus of Dublin 2013 Congress will be on proven deployed solutions and innovative R&D that solve real problems and deliver value for money in today’s challenging economic environment.'

European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes has awarded prizes to eHealth SMEs from Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and United Kingdom as part of eHealth Week 2013 in Dublin, Ireland.

Did you know that eHealth technologies can help you to check and manage your health, wherever you are? You can monitor your heart, stress, diabetes, a stroke, a depression...

UncertWeb is a recently concluded FP7 research project. It looked into the way we treat and manage uncertainty when we use science to understand, predict and control the world around us. Often, it is very important to be able to quantify our uncertainties about what has happened and what will happen in the future. UncertWeb steps in by providing a range of tools to help quantify the initial uncertainties, work out their effects on the outcomes of our models of the world around us, and visualise the results in an intuitive way. UncertWeb researchers have applied UncertWeb's tools and the associated web-based systems in a number of areas looking at air quality forecasts, how food production might change with our changing climate, how climate and human pressures affect biodiversity and how people experience their environment. The video clickable under "More information" provides an overview of the achievements of UncertWeb.

A declaration by the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU committing Member States to developing eHealth ecosystems that could contribute to the reform of health systems has been welcomed by European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and Health Commissioner Tonio Borg. The Irish Presidency presented the Declaration at the Ministerial eHealth High Level Conference in Dublin on May 13th. eHealth ecosystems pool the resources of health and social care providers, industry, research institutions, authorities and end users throughout Europe to accelerate the development and adoption of innovative solutions such as eHealth to specific problems in health and social care.

The main topic of this year (digital innovation) will allow to touch upon information, communication, policy, organization, security and legal issues in areas like open governmental data, policy modelling, collaborative governance, opinion mining and visualization, collective awareness, digital enterprise and entrepreneurship, interoperability.

An EU funded project that paves the way to an innovative Internet architecture meeting current traffic and growing security demands has just been awarded a prize at the Future Internet Assembly (FIA) in Dublin. The PURSUIT project received the Future Internet Award for its outstanding contribution to redefining the existing Internet design in order to ensure users' stronger control over their data while enhancing broadband connections.

Computers thinking like humans seem to be a science-fiction idea... Really?

In the European context, open innovation is now used as a synonym for modern, highly dynamic and inter­active processes. Linear and sequential mindsets are slowly changing to be more opportunistic, more dar­ing and more action-oriented. We need to move from having ‘perfect plans for yesterday’ to an innovation culture which fosters experimentation and prototyp­ing in real-world settings. This new innovation cul­ture leads to simultaneous technological and societal innovation and encouragement. We need to be daring and also experiment with disruptive approaches as gradual improvement does not properly reflect the potential that the omnipresent, fast-developing ICT provides for parallel innovations.

E-Health High Level Conference, Dublin

The Commission today unveiled plans for the Global Internet Policy Observatory (GIPO), an online platform to improve knowledge of and participation of all stakeholders across the world in debates and decisions on Internet policies. GIPO will be developed by the Commission and a core alliance of countries and Non Governmental Organisations involved in Internet governance. Brazil, the African Union, Switzerland, the Association for Progressive Communication, Diplo Foundation and the Internet Society have agreed to cooperate or have expressed their interest to be involved in the project.

This exciting award aims at encouraging children and adults to create new and highlight already existing child-friendly, quality online content. The European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: "The online world can be a great place for kids. I dream of building a Better Internet for Children: with the right online content, kids can explore, play and learn safely – ensuring they have a great time while also gaining the skills for a digital world. I hope this this competition can generate and celebrate bright ideas from across Europe". National heats of the competition will run until November through the Safer Internet Centres, with the best national initiatives going forward to compete at European level. The top-three European resources in each of the four categories will be awarded on Safer Internet Day in February 2014.

As the date for this year's event draws closer, the world's leaders in health IT are committed to attending eHealth Week. It's not surprising, as this year's conference offers one of the best eHealth learning programmes on the planet.

The European Commission outlined how Member States will help identify the real use of radio spectrum. The aim of the spectrum inventory is to identify frequency bands in which efficiency could be improved to cater for spectrum demands. For example, the inventory will help to identify at least 1200 MHz of suitable spectrum for wireless broadband networks by 2015.The inventory is an important part of the EU Radio Spectrum Policy Programme (RSPP) presented by the Commission in September 2010.

De Dag van Europa, Ministerie van Economische Zaken, Den Haag

More than 4000 researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, industry representatives, young people and politicians are expected in Vilnius. Registration for the event has just been opened.

The EU SME eHealth Competition rewards the best eHealth solution of 2013 produced by a European Small and Medium Enterprise. Meet the finalists.