News Story

The Future Internet takes another Step Forward

John Domingue, Friday 15 May 2009

More than ever the Global Economy and Society depends on the Internet – all major sectors of industry, from transport and banking to entertainment and education are moving online. With todayï¿½s 1 billion Internet users soon to be joined by 3 billion mobile online devices Internet usage will need to become fully pervasive, incorporating a secure wireless anywhere anytime global network infrastructure. Responding to the societal and economic demands requires more than a mere patch or upgrade of the underlying network and service infrastructure. A radical rethink is required leading to a range of technical, economic, societal and governance challenges. On 31 March 2008, the Bled Declaration launched a European approach to the Future of the Internet, and the conference in Bled established the Future Internet Assembly. From there on, the French EU presidency intensified work and held two international meetings on the topic, the i2010 policy conference on the Future Internet and the International conference Internet of Things – Internet of the Future. One year later, and following the ministerial-level Seoul Declaration inviting nations to seize and further develop the economic and social opportunities offered by the wide spread availability of Internet based applications, the Future Internet Assembly in Prague aims to review the strategic orientations and trends governing the future societal and economic developments of on-line Internet and Mobile societies. These trends impact the underlying network and service technologies and subsequently drive research and technology requirements towards a Future Internet, hence continuing to shape future actions at European level in a domain that has now become a global issue. The Future Internet Assembly, held in Prague May 11-13, showcased progress made on the commitments taken by more than 80 European funded projects, incorporating a budget of 500M Euros, when signing the Bled declaration, and enabled the signing of co-operation agreements across key players world-wide. Opened by the European Commissioner Viviane Reding and representatives of the Czech EU Presidency, the Future Internet Assembly moved to series of technical sessions across the seven cross-domain working groups: Future Content Networks, Identity and Trust in a Future Internet, Management and Service Aware Networking Architectures, Real World Internet, SocioEconomics, Usage of Facilities based on Use Cases and Future Internet Service Offer. Significant progress was made over the 3 days and work will continue to the next Future Internet Assembly which will coincide with the Swedish EU Presidency and will take place in Stockholm in November, 2009. KMiï¿½s involvement in this work is through John Domingue who coordinates the Future Internet Service Offer working group as part of his role in the Service Web 3.0 project