More on EIFFEL

As promised here an update on the EIFFEL initiative, introduced first here.

As said in the earlier blog entry, the findings of the EIFFEL discussions were revealed on December 15th in the form of a series of presentations that were based on the EIFFEL whitepaper, released publicly the very same day.

Prof. Petri Mahonen led off the presentation series, after welcoming words from Dr. Joao DaSilva. It was my pleasure to present the findings on technological and socio-economic drivers for the Future Internet, followed by Dimitri Papadimitriou’s presentation on the technology challenges that the development of the Future Internet will face. After a brief excursion on policy challenges, Petri revealed the dedicated actions that were developed by the EIFFEL Think Tank as a proposal to the Commision, namely the creation of a supporting action (SSA) for explorative Future Internet research and the establishment of a School of Architects project in the Framework Program 7.

After the actual presentations, a round table was held in conjunction with the representatives of the European Technology Platforms on future actions towards a coherent European Future Internet initiative. I felt many positive tendencies towards the actions that are proposed by EIFFEL, while there was certainly also some feeling of opposition (in essence EIFFEL can be seen as competition for a limited pot of money, right?).

What are the next steps now? The next few weeks will see activities in putting some concrete meat behind the proposed actions, i.e., the SSA and the School of Architects. Also, it will be required to further politicize the issue and advocate the proposed actions and the outlined approach of the whitepaper. Here, it is crucial to highlight that EIFFEL does not attempt to oppose the well established ETP approach rather than to complement them. This will create a strong proposition of evolutionary and explorative research for the Future Internet that can set Europe really apart. Let’s hope that politics will not prevent us from that!

For the future, you are invited to follow discussions through the EIFFEL website and the mailing list (needs registration). Feel free to also post comments or send emails for further inquiries.