At place in Lyon listening to a seminar about the future Internet. The speakers are gathered and initially one of them starts talking about – technology. Why I wonder, Internet is for me all about collaboration, services and innovation. But apparently to the speaker it is more about radio frequency and so on. And – yes – now he mentioned the Internet of Things. All about buzz-words I think.
The good thing though is that ICT really seems to be on the agenda for the commission. They are actually increasing the budget for ICT-related programs within for instance FP7 during the next years and that, from my point of view, is very good. But issues are:
1. The role of knowledge intensive applications
2. Non-technological issues
3. New alliances
4. Benefits and key system control factors
One main question that the speaker addresses “Is the networks generation able to rouse its beneficial effects on the coming challenges?” Yes he thinks, but also defines the network generation as us?! That was thrilling I must say.
The Future of networks is the next speech (Francois Baccelli). I’m still waiting to see if it’s about technology or the content, but now he mentioned “Internet of things” so I figure it will be about technology. And yes it is, in five minutes he has mentioned all tech buzz-words I can come up with including sensor networks and RFID. The main conclusion of the speech is that we will all be connected all the time and all our gadgets will also be connected. And actually I don’t know why this interest for the topic, but I imagine that coming from a region with excellent infrastructure we focus more on doing business with new services instead of building infrastructure with technology.
He mentions though some challenges for us both for academia and businesses. We need to strengthen our academic fields of research –type Stanford. We also need to create value in the networks and he thinks that there are in the US more possibilities and more success stories doing business out of ideas and research from the university.
Next speaker is Bruno Orth from Deutche Telecom. He speaks about that Internet is continuously growing and what may happen if it explode? Now we can’t live without Internet, for example there are people that not will move if the broadband is not enough in the new house. The problem is the cost – it is growing. The net is growing with 50 percent a year, but services are only growing with 15 percent (that is the market). So of course there will be problems when the market is decreasing and peoples demands are increasing. Who will pay, and who will pay for network innovation? One of his points are that the industry should be more involved in the different EU programs.
Next speaker- Niklas Savander, Nokia - talks about the consumer view. He starts talking about location awareness. But no one is making any many; everybody is trying to compensate this with volume. Of course that is a problem. He’s talking a lot about how to do business. It’s of cours the same as usual, advertising for instance. But he’s saying something very important – speed is very important. That means implement first, standardize later. In Europe we are very focused on how to standardize things, in US they just implement and that means that they are ahead all the time. He points at some things the private sector can do:
1. Manage to ensure openness and innovation
2. Focus on usability
3. Shift control further to the consumer
Then the public sector also can do some things:
1. Provide the right education framework
2. Prepare to address personal information and privacy issues
3. Support entrepreneurial activity in this area
We must ensure that Europe is a driver in this aspect, not only sitting and looking as a spectator. The new ways of communicating and also the context of locations awareness and how transparent we want to be in this context form the future. This was actually the first time I heard someone talking about doing business and that was very encouraging.
The last speaker that talk are from Atos Origin and he start talking about new research areas within the ICT field. He divides it into three topics: Knowledge, complexity and diversity. All are needed for Europe to compete with other regions in the world. He talks about some macro trends, for instance that the value of knowledge is increasing. Also the pace of developing technologies is going more rapid. Then he talks more about technology and maybe that was not so interesting after the speaker before him.
So what are my reflections - just observing and listening? One is that the people in the commission have started to learn to talk about business models and that earning money is important. They also have learned that we need entrepreneurs and people that are creative. That of course is a fall forward but now it is up to everybody to show that they mean what they say. And there I’m a bit concerned. At first people in the public sector and at the universities tends to think that there is an equal sign between innovators and entrepreneurs. And there is not. Most innovators and researchers are very bad entrepreneurs and they should stay as researchers. Then someone says that we need to learn the researchers about how to create business. Don’t. Most of them are not interested in business, they are interested in innovation.
Think about Thomas Alva Edison. He who invented the light bulb, you would say. But he did not. That was a guy called Jonathan Swan who did that. Edison found the technology and figured out how to use it in a context. That is creating business out of existing inventions and that is what we need more of. So start finding those ideas that already is laying there and put them into the hands of people who love business. That will give more impact than all these entrepreneur educations that universities tend to start. Then we might have a chance against other, more business oriented regions in the world.
Now I’m summing up at Charles de Gaulle Airport, waiting for my connecting flight. This must be one of Europes worst airports without any restaurants, shops or anything. Feels like a trip back to the 70’s in some city in Eastern Europe. Nothing fun at all.