Information Society News

This event aims to promote breakthrough research, successful innovation networks and potential investment opportunities. It will bring together leading figures in science, engineering and technology across Europe for a high level meeting on how we can turn science into commerce.

More than 4000 people die in the EU each year because of accidents caused by fire and many thousands more are hospitalised to receive treatment for burns. Thanks to EU-funded research, medical experts will be able to more quickly identify the harmful bacteria or fungus which may be lurking in the wounds of burn victims and causing an infection, speeding up the diagnostic and healing process by days. Until now, doctors have had to rely on microbiological tests that took several days to identify which bacteria were causing the infection. Researchers from Germany, Italy, Lithuania and the UK have developed a small electronic device which can pinpoint the type of bacteria in just a few minutes, by identifying the minute amounts of gas the bacteria are producing. The quicker infections can be diagnosed, the faster patients can be treated, which can in turn lower the cost of lengthy hospital stays. The EU has invested €1.67 million of ICT research funding into the Woundmonitor, developing a successful first prototype device.

Each year 350,000 new cases of breast cancer are detected in the European Union, but a lack of effective technology to assist in cases that are difficult to diagnose means some cases go undetected or are incorrectly diagnosed. The EU is investing €3.1 million to develop better and quicker breast cancer diagnostics through the HAMAM project. This project is developing a prototype workstation to help diagnose breast cancer by integrating multi-modal images resulting from mammography, magnetic resonance imaging and other technologies as well as patient information. Doctors will be able to compare those multi-modal images side by side while viewing the patient’s history and medical analyses. The workstation will be tested in selected hospitals in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.

In the first of a series of events, ENISA will gather opinion leaders from the European Commission, European Parliament, and Council as well as major industry representatives to discuss a policy framework for securing Europe’s future information society, while addressing aspects such as securing infrastructures, fighting cyber crime, promoting standardisation, enhancing ePrivacy and educating on ICT security.

This 1st AEGIS International Conference will showcase the world's most influential open source, web and mobile accessibility projects and bring together developers and people with disabilities. It gathers presenters and exhibitors that address assistive technology in Rich Internet Applications (RIA), desktop applications and mobile applications, as well as developer tools that embed accessibility plug-ins. It is organised by AEGIS, a research & development project supported by the European Commission. The AEGIS project develops software for persons with disabilities, covering the desktop platform, the web and mobile devices. It has just released an extension for the OpenOffice.org Writer that enables users to save documents as Braille or to send them directly to a Braille embosser.

This international information and brokerage event is organised by Ideal-ist in cooperation with other international networks for research, innovation and business and the European Commission. Organised during the ICT2010 conference, it aims to make research, innovation and business communities aware of funding opportunities offered by the Framework Programmes of the European Union and to foster potential co-operations through dedicated networking activities, such as the offered face-to-face meetings.

This event is organised to promote eParticipation in Europe. It will bring public servants, practitioners, politicians, representatives of grass-roots organisations and academics together to share their knowledge and to kick-start new ideas and initiatives. The event will be attended by a broad spectrum of eParticipation actors and will feature a range of high-level speakers from political bodies, major corporations, and universities. The Pan-European eParticipation Network (PEP-NET) is a Commission-funded project that promotes co-operation between European organisations involved in eParticipation. The network has over 50 members and has been active during the past three years. The event will be hosted by the City of Hamburg.

The study should identify: which are the communities that develop application codes for supercomputers and grids; which are these codes, what are the machines they run on, who are their users, what are the results they produce and which of them could eventually scale up for exploiting the High Performance Computing and GRIDS infrastructures; what have been the funding mechanisms for such development up to now (national grants, international agreements, EU); and who actually owns the property rights for such codes, as well as the different code-licensing schemes and to identify what should be the governance model for such an infrastructure.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of e-infrastructures on the knowledge society. To this end the study should define different types of impact categories and develop indicators which would measure these impacts. The study should include the identification of appropriate economic and econometric models describing the ways in which e-infrastructures impact modern economy. The study should be based on different types of information collected, based on both quantitative and qualitative data.

The Integral SatCom Initiative European Technology Platform (ISI) released an innovative paper to identify the research topics in satellite communications that could help in addressing grand societal challenges. It is the first one produced by a Technology Platform on interdisciplinary cooperation for societal challenges. The key words to remember: smarter systems for culture and knowledge management, healthcare, transport, mobility, environmental information, energy grids and broadband for all.

In case of a severe crash, an eCall-equipped vehicle will automatically call 112, the EU's single emergency number. Even if no passenger is able to speak, e.g. due to injuries, a minimum set of data with information about the accident is sent automatically. The minimum set of data includes the exact geographic location of the crash site. eCall can also be activated manually. eCall has the potential to reduce the time that emergency services will need to arrive at the accident scene. This will contribute to reducing the number of people killed in road accidents, as well as the severity of injuries. The European Commission is carrying out an impact assessment of the eCall deployment. The assessment considers various policy options (no intervention, voluntary approach or mandatory implementation of eCall) to implement the eCall system in Europe. The main objective of this public consultation is to collect the opinions of stakeholders and EU citizens on the issue and therefore ensure the transparency of the decision making process. Closing date : 19/09/2010

This study is intended to provide price data on broadband Internet access costs. Its aim is to provide a comparison between and within member states and third countries and to monitor the development of prices. It covers the 27 Member States of the EU plus a number of third countries. Its results will be used for the benchmarking exercise of the Digital Agenda.

Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda will be opening the Digital Agenda Summit organised jointly by ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association and the Financial Times. This event will bring together the Chief Executive Officers of the leading e-communications providers and ICT equipment manufacturers from Europe and beyond for a high-level dialogue with EU policy makers on the key challenges ahead in order to fully unlock the potential of the ICT sector for the economy and society and meet the targets of the Digital Agenda for Europe.

This workshop aims to encourage the sharing of good practice in the area of Inclusive eGovernment. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: eGovernment policies targeted at groups at risk of exclusion; User segmentation in eGovernment services; Inclusive eGovernment in healthcare; Multichannel delivery services; eGovernment services: the ‘value chain’ dimension; Design, production, delivery, access and use of inclusive eGovernment services; “Inclusive by design” versus specific assistance - tailored services; Marketing, targeting and promotion of eGovernment services for specific disadvantaged groups.

Internet traffic flows (in a broad sense, involving all types of information exchanged through the internet) can provide a source of data on socio-economic phenomena complementary to the data usually collected by interviewing internet user. The traffic generated by the different activities over the internet can be analysed and processed to obtain statistics on the use of internet. The general objective of this study is the proposal of a methodological framework for new indicators and of a roadmap for implementing at a large scale the promising applications of the concept of internet as a data source in the domain of monitoring information society developments.

The AAL Forum is the yearly conference of the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme, which aims to invest around €700 million in products and services between now and 2013. It provides a platform for all stakeholders – investors, researchers, policy makers, industry providers and end-users – to discuss smart solutions for improved quality of life in later years. Ambient Assisted Living Technology is a relatively new and vibrant field of investment, research and development. Policy makers are already exploring options and planning on future technology investments in this area. Several regional and national initiatives are emerging around Europe to support public and private investment. In support of this, the 2010 AAL Forum will now launch and host the first ever European ‘AAL Investment Forum’. The objective of the one-day Investment Forum is to improve communication between investors and researchers and introduce investors to projects which require immediate and/or long term funding. World leading entrepreneur, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil will be one of the keynote speakers at this event.

This workshop aims to encourage good practice sharing in the area of Digital competences of intermediaries and social actors working in the field of economic, social and/or digital inclusion of groups at risk of exclusion such as the elderly, disabled, migrants, youth, unemployed and low educated people.

The 2011 WoHIT Conference and Exhibition will be held in Budapest, Hungary, in conjunction with the annual eHealth High Level Ministerial Conference – eHealth2011 – which is co-organised by the European Commission and the Hungarian Presidency of the EU. WoHIT has launched its call for papers on European IT development. Focus will be on proposals that are addressing the educational needs of professionals in various sectors of healthcare, enterprise solutions and practical approaches to healthcare IT issues. Three different themes in the area of eHealth and health IT have been named: eHealth Works: Here Is the Evidence; eHealth Market; eHealth Users’ Platform.

WORKPAD, an EU-funded ICT research project, has developed software applications that allow emergency teams responding to natural disasters to coordinate and communicate with each other quickly and efficiently, helping to save more lives. Coordination and communication is especially important when emergency teams from many different agencies, civil authorities and NGOs are on the ground at the same time. €1.85 million of EU funding helped the researchers to explore how dozens of databases from different organisations can be linked via peer-to-peer technology to improve response time and avoid duplication of efforts. One central dispatch point that receives and sends out information to all emergency teams can help save more lives in a quick and efficient way. The technology has already been tried successfully in Southern Italy and is available to be used anywhere in the world.

Today, the European Commission published calls for proposals that will result in projects worth €1.2 billion to be launched in 2011.