— Posted by Silvia Andreescu, DG INFSO, Project Officer in the unit responsible for Nanoelectronics

Are you trying to start – up a business or already running your own company? Are you working in an SME or, on the contrary, in a big corporation? Are you a web-entrepreneur looking forward to help designing a web strategy?  Would you, for example, like to have a Startup Europe Partnership based on the Based on Startup America initiative?

This is your chance to share your thoughts on what Europe should do to help businesses move forward and promote innovation. Read the full entry

Number of views: 1094

 — Posted by Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, World Intellectual Property Organization, Senior Economist (in personal capacity)

In the current environment, the search for new sprouts of growth preoccupies many of us. With the focus on austerity measures, the Euro and capital shortages, we have our heads in the macro-economy cloud; with some danger of getting lost in it…

At this juncture it is critical to remember what the important sources of growth really are. I mean innovation and entrepreneurship of course, in particular as they relate to new technologies and new jobs. I mean business and policy practices which avert the real risks to innovation-based growth in Europe. They matter. Let’s not treat them as residuals to (surely equally important and connected) macro-economy matters.

Read the full entry

Number of views: 3247

 — Posted by Lorena Boix & the Going Local team for Spain  – English text available below

El pasado 1 de diciembre 2011 nos reunimos en Sevilla con unas 200 personas para hablar de la Agenda Digital Europea en España, concretamente de tres temas: eGobierno, Espectro radioeléctrico e Innovación social.

El evento, co-organizado por la Comisión europea y el gobierno de España con el muy valioso y entusiasta apoyo de la Junta de Andalucía, despertó gran interés y destacó por el gran nivel de participación tanto durante el evento como online (antes y durante el evento). Apuntamos algunos datos: en Twitter tuvimos más de 2300 tweets de #daelocal_ES y 364 twitterers. Además, un mes antes lanzamos foros de discusión online para intercambiar ideas sobre los tres temas de la Agenda Digital tratados en el evento de Sevilla, y más concretamente sobre la situación actual y las prioridades en España en lo referente a estos temas. Más de 500 personas participaron aportando, comentando o votando ideas , y se recogieron más de 60 ideas. Toda esta actividad se recogerá en el informe final del evento que publicaremos en las próximas semanas en la website del going local Sevilla junto con todas las presentaciones de los ponentes.

Read the full entry

Number of views: 1332

— posted by Rafaela Oliveira Lima, Member of the Going Local Team for Portugal

A Agenda Digital para a Europa tem como objectivo tornar cada europeu digital.
A Comissão Europeia, em colaboração com as autoridades nacionais e locais, está a organizar o Going Local 2011 de forma a dar a oportunidade a cada português de fazer ouvir a sua voz.

 Uma equipa da Comissão Europeia liderada por Mário Campolargo, Director de Tecnologias Emergentes e Infra-estruturas, DG INFSO, estará no Porto e em Aveiro no próximo dia 12 de Dezembro, e em Coimbra e Lisboa nos dias 13 e 14 de Dezembro, respectivamente.

Queremos entender qual é a situação actual e o progresso feito desde a publicação da Agenda Digital para a Europa em 2010, mas sobretudo procuramos perceber quais são as prioridades de Portugal, e como pode o país contribuir para a implementação dessas acções.   

Os principais temas a serem tratados serão:

• Governo e Administração Pública on-line
• e-Inclusão, Educação, Competências e Literacia Digital
• Banda Larga
• Inovação
• Infra-estructuras para a Investigação e Conhecimento
• Portugal, a Europa e o Mundo

  Read the full entry

Number of views: 624

 — posted by The Going Local Team for Spain

Por segundo año consecutivo, la Comisión Europea está organizando  junto con autoridades nacionales y locales la iniciativa “Agenda Digital para Europa: Acción Local”. 

Este año los eventos tienen lugar en Madrid (como parte de la conferencia de contenidos digitales FICOD) y en Sevilla. El evento principal tendrá lugar en Sevilla el día 1 de Diciembre.  Lorena Boix del Gabinete de la Comisario Neelie Kroes es la embajadora que visita y representa la Agenda Digital en ambos.

En Sevilla  el programa abordará tres temas principales:

1.  eGobierno   
2. Innovación social
3. Espectro 

Read the full entry

Number of views: 1121

— posted by Luis Rodriguez-Rosello, Member of  the Going Local Team for Slovakia

Digitálna agenda prichádza po druhý krát na Slovensko, a to 25. novembra 2011 v rámci iniciatívy Digital Agenda Going Local. Zástupcovia Európskej komisie plánujú diskutovať o dnešnom stave informačnej spoločnosti a informačných a komunikačných technológií so zástupcami štátnych a verejných inštitúcií, ako aj zástupcami širšej odbornej verejnosti.

Kľúčové témy zahrňujú aktuálne témy ako eSlužby – verejné služby ako eVláda, eZdravotníctvo, eZručnosti, eInklúzia, rozvoj širokopásmového prístupu, nástroj Connecting Europe Facility (Prepájame Európu-CEF), ako aj výskum a inovácie. Dôležitou súčasťou akcie je otvorená mini-konferencia  o príležitostiach a perspektívach vo výskume a inovácii, ktorá zahrnie aj témy ako Horizont 2020 a CEF.

Tešíme sa na Vašu účasť a na inšpiratívnu výmenu názorov a informácií tento piatok.

Simultánne tlmočenie je zabezpečené.

‘Pre Dalšie informa’cie: Digital Agenda, Going Local to Slovakia a ICT Research FP7. Twitter: #digitalagenda, #daelocal_sk

Number of views: 1308

— Posted by Wolfgang Boch, DG INFSO, Head of unit: Future and Emerging Technologies – Proactive

A chance to look into the future?

How you can analyse vast amounts of data and complex situations to predict natural disasters, or manage and respond to man-made disasters that cross national borders or continents.

Choosing a material that has led to a Nobel-prize in physics?

Graphene is a new material developed by atomic and molecular scale manipulation that could replace silicon as the wonder material of the 21st century.

Recognise environmental threats and dangerous situations with zero power?

Tiny devices without batteries that act like autonomous personal assistants, which can sense, compute and communicate – even while travelling through your bloodstream.

Simulate the complete human brain or let’s just say „neurorobotics”?

Understanding the way in which the human brain works can bring the benefits of brain-related or brain-inspired developments to computing architectures, neuroscience and medicine.

Read the full entry

Number of views: 2280

Posted by Pearse O’Donohue, DG INFSO, Head of unit: Radio Spectrum Policy

This is one of the key questions that will be addressed in a workshop on “Promoting the shared use of radio spectrum resources in Europe” in Brussels on 16 December 2011. In the workshop, hosted by the European Commission, the results of a study on shared spectrum access carried out by SCF Associates Ltd, a consortium of independent consultants will be presented and discussed.

You can find more information on the workshop programme, the key topics to be addressed and how to register your participation here.  Please register before 1 December 2011. As the space is limited, you will receive a confirmation on the 2 December 2011.

However, already for the preparation the workshop, the study team and the Commission Services would be interested in your views: Read the full entry

Number of views: 1187

— Posted by the Going Local team for Denmark

In the context of the Going Local 2011 exercise DG INFSO have carried out two meetings in Denmark on 3 October 2011 in Sonderborg and 12 October 2011 in Aarhus,

In Sonderborg the focus was on digital challenges and solutions for citizens and businesses, which cross the border daily or regularly. In Aarhus the focus was on innovation and growth using new technologies.

If you have an interest in the results of these meetings, keep an eye on our website. Follow us on twitter @DigitalAgendaEU and use the hashtag  #daelocal_dk & #daelocal 

Number of views: 623

— Posted by Prof. Luciano Floridi, Research Chair in Philosophy of Information and GPI, University of Hertfordshire; Faculty of Philosophy and IEG, University of Oxford; UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics.

Nanotechnology, the Internet of Things, Web 2.0, Semantic Web, Cloud computing, motion-capturing games, smart phones apps, GPS, Augmented Reality, Artificial Companions, drones… is there a unifying perspective from which all these ICT phenomena might be interpreted as aspects of a single, macroscopic trend?

Part of the difficulty, in answering this question, is that we are still used to looking at ICTs as tools to interact with the world, when in fact they have become environmental forces, which are creating and shaping our reality, more and more pervasively. To put it briefly, the answer may lie in realising that ICTs are enveloping the world. In robotics, an envelope (also known as reach envelop) is the three-dimensional space that defines the boundaries that the robot can reach.

Read the full entry

Number of views: 2062