ITEA forges ahead to its promise
Amsterdam, October 15, 2002
ITEA Symposium 2002 Amsterdam post-symposium press elease
word-document - 229 kB
On 10 and 11 October 2002, 250 software experts and ICT policy-makers from all over Europe met in Amsterdam for the 3rd Annual Symposium of ITEA (Information Technology for European Advancement). ITEA is now several steps closer to its goal of establishing European leadership in software-intensive systems, thanks to its success in coordinating industry-driven research in embedded and distributed software.
The theme of the symposium was 'Building the digital future'. In two days of keynote addresses, demonstrations and presentations it quickly became clear that ITEA is much more than a series of high-level projects. United by a vision of a Europe driven by collaboration between industry, governments and academia, it has become a real community. There was not only a strong pan- European media presence, but the quality of exchanges amongst participants was also exceptionally high.
Future-oriented presentations and demonstrations
ITEA is now almost at the halfway stage of its eight-year programme (1999 - 2007). This maturity was evident in three excellent examples of industrial exploitation of ITEA projects. First, the director of Market Maker - a small German company - described ways in which System Family Engineering has dramatically reduced his project development costs. Secondly, a new mobile networking platform offering common services was presented to work with eight pilot applications. Finally, middleware developed by a consortium of Irish, Czech, Belgian and French companies that provides application services to a broad range of terminals including mobile phones, smart cards and computers was presented. This project (PEPiTA) received this year's ITEA Achievement Award as an outstanding example of effective exploitation.
A highly professional exhibition of demos and prototypes from 31 projects provided tangible evidence of successful applications as well as an exciting glimpse into the future. One project team demonstrated vital middleware that adds intelligence to Internet routers around the world (of which there are around 230,000). In the Digital Cinema project, images and sound are projected digitally rather than via celluloid prints: films can now be distributed on digital tape or video servers - or even beamed into the cinema real-time by satellite. This technology, which will soon be available across Europe, was demonstrated in clips from films including a remake of Star Wars.
Participants in another project are creating digital environments that are sensitive, adaptive and responsive to our needs, habits, gestures and emotions. To test possible future scenarios they are building prototype 'smart homes' and 'intelligent' boardrooms, design studios and public buildings.
There was a special public session on software engineering - attended by 60 participants - at which ideas, results and experiences from five ITEA projects that focus on software engineering were presented. The main topics were development methodologies for product families and embedded real-time systems, and the results of integrating UML and SDL.
The first ITEA Excellence Award was presented to outgoing vice-chairman Eric Daclin, who will be succeeded in this post by Jean-Pierre Lacotte of Thomson.
The digital transition
In keynote speeches, four executives tackled different aspects of the digital transition:
- Jean-Charles Hourcade CTO of Thomson Multimedia, spoke about the transition currently taking place along the video chain (largely complete in broadcasting, but still with a long way to go in cinema). He emphasized the vital role for software in digital rights management.
- Cesar Vohringer CTO of Philips Consumer Electronics described the steps being taken along the track towards a unified system in the Digital Home. Here, various technologies for personal expression (such as camcorders) are being seamlessly combined with systems that provide information, entertainment and facilities for the home office.
- In an extremely lively and thought-provoking presentation, Maurizio Decina, member of the Board of Italtel, Director of CEFRIEL, and professor at the Politecnico di Milano took his audience on a journey beyond 3G networks towards pervasive peer-to-peer computing.
- Emmanuel Caquot of France's Ministry of Economy, Finance & Industry and DIGITIP, portrayed the French perspective on collaboration in the European Research Area (ERA) as France prepares for its upcoming EUREKA chairmanship.
Panel discussion
A distinguished panel then took the symposium theme ('Building the digital future') to the ERA level, discussing the challenges Europe is currently facing in ICT. They examined the gap between R&D investment levels in Europe and those in the USA and Japan, and ways in which procurement policies might help achieve the R&D investment goal set at the European Council in Barcelona (3% of Europe's GDP by 2010). As a way to channel effective collaboration in ERA, the panel endorsed ITEA and MEDEA+'s concept of focusing on strategic application domains - areas in which Europe is already very strong.
About ITEA
ITEA, which was established in 1999 as a EUREKA strategic cluster programme, supports coordinated national funding submissions, issues annual Calls for Projects, evaluates projects and helps bring research partners together. ITEA plays a prominent role in European software development: over 5,000 person-years of R&D have been invested in the programme so far; another 10,000 are anticipated over the next five years.
Founding companies include Alcatel, Barco, Bosch, Bull, DaimlerChrysler, Italtel, Nokia, Philips Electronics, Siemens, Thales, and Thomson, who were later joined by the European Federation of High-Tech Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
Note to the editor:
For more information, please contact:
| Anne van der Linden | Wendy Luyckx |
| PR/Communications ITEA | Porter Novelli Brussels |
| Tel: +31 40 247 5590 | Tel:+32 2 413 03 40 |
| Fax: +31 40 247 5595 | Fax:+32 2 413 03 49 |
| vdlinden@itea-office.org | wendy.luyckx@pnbrussels.com |
Details of all current and completed ITEA projects as well as the presentations, keynote addresses and pictures of speakers will be fully documented on this website from 18 October onwards.
