Grand ICT IST Challenges Views from ISTAG

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Grand ICT (IST) Challenges- Views from ISTAG -

• Dr. Peter Tancig, Secretary General, The
  Researchers' Association of Slovenia
• Member of the Information Society Technologies
  Advisory Group ISTAG
• (former Minister for Science and Technology)
• ------------------
• Presented at Dedicated Workshop on Future
  Visions for IST, Challenges and Bottlenecks
• towards The Lisbon 2010 Objectives for New
  Member States and Candidate Countries
• to the Eu Bucharest, Romania, October 18, 2004
• Presentation invited by IPTS-JRC (Institute for
  Prospective and Technological Studies)
• and Romanian Academy

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Outline

• To be presented
• ISTAG Working group on Grand Challenges in the
  Evolution of the Information Society -
  (ICT/IST)- major part
• ISTAG Working group on Europe Wide Initiatives
  Building critical mass in cross-border
  innovation- minor part
• Opening debate for
• How to cooperate on ICT/IST challenges?
• Role of new member states and candidate countries

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges
ISTAG Members in the Working Group H. Bourlard
(Switzerland), M. Hermenegildo (Spain), V. Kucera
(Czech), L. Reinhart (France), W. Wahlster
(Germany, Chair) External Experts in the Working
Group W. Weigel (Siemens), E. Sandewall
(Sweden), Th. Lengauer (MPI, Germany), G. Gross
(Switzerland), J. Mariani (France) Using Results
of Similar Groups in Europe - Partners for
Innovation - Feldafing Circle for Megatrends in
IT - Dagstuhl Committee Computer Science 10
years ahead - Grand Challenges Committees of the
UK/France
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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• AIMS, MISSION
• to identify major grand challenges in information
  and communication technology relevant to future
  society
• to explore the scientific, economic and social
  importance of these grand challenges, as well as
  the potential legal and ethical implications of
  their realisation
• to identify the principal scientific and
  technological research directions that will be
  instrumental in pursuing these grand challenges
• to design a roadmap with milestones showing how
  these grand challenges can be tackled in a staged
  approach
• to make a preliminary assessment (portfolio
  analysis) of Europes competitive standing
  relative to the US and Asia in the science and
  technology associated with each of these grand
  challenges

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• GRAND CHALLENGES
• are medium to long-term focused themes demanding
  breakthroughs in basic and application-oriented
  research and engineering in many key technologies
• lead to concrete pictures of the future that are
  easy to understand and communicate by
  politicians and industrial leaders
• lie at the edge of what just might be possible
  with a massive RD effort
• integrate many disciplines, produce a lot of
  spin-off products, and have a clear commercial
  and social benefit
• boost the visibility and impact of European
  research

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• PRECISE SET OF CRITERIA
• must be visionary, looking 10 years into the
  future, and demand basic research and engineering
  in many areas of computer science, from hardware
  to software and beyond
• must demand the seamless integration of diverse
  technologies
• must promise tangible payoffs in the form of new
  technical capabilities and new businesses that
  would help the EU to exploit its existing
  expertise so as to meet the social and economic
  goals of the Lisbon objectives
• must focus on highly concrete goals and involve
  clear benchmarks and measures for progress
  towards those goals

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• RESEARCH CHALLENGES
• Advanced ICT Models and Technologies
• Cognitive Technologies
• Human Interfaces
• Distributed Ambient Computing
• Advanced Knowledge Management
• Innovative ICT Methods and Infrastructures
• Software-Intensive System Development
• Systems Modelling and Simulation
• Next Generation Communication Technologies
• Nano-electronics, Architectures and Sensing.

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHALLENGES
• accelerating economic growth and job creation by
  new value and services
• dealing with health care in an aging society
• responding to growing safety concerns

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• STRUCTURE
• Short presentations- utilization- fields of
  work- overview rationale, vision
• (Content)- the vision and its potential
  benefits- technical, social and ethical
  challenges- EU standing relative to others

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• UTILIZATION
• The 100 Safe Carfor survival, security,
  convenience
• The Multilingual Companionfor tourists,
  cultural heritage, business meetings
• The Service Robot Companionfor help with food
  preparation, surface cleaning
• The Self-Monitoring and Self-Repairing
  Computerfor network security, safety-critical
  applications, real-time services
• The Internet Police Agentfor security,
  intrusion detection, law enforcement, fighting
  against a sick Internet

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• The Disease and Treatment Simulatorfor disease
  prediction, drug testing, medical research
• The Augmented Personal Memoryfor augmented
  episodic memory, security, aid for the elderly
  and handicapped
• The Pervasive Communication Jacketfor life
  saving, security, health monitoring, mobile web
  services
• The Personal Everywhere Visualiserfor mobile
  everywhere displays, future office environments,
  tele-presence, retail environments, augmented
  reality service
• The Ultra-light Aerial Transport Agentfor
  security, small-scale logistics for indoor and
  outdoor, helping the elderly and handicapped,
  convenience
• The Intelligent Retail Storefor smart
  logistics, mixed reality shopping, automatic
  comparison shopping, cross-and up-selling

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• FIELDS OF WORK
• The 100 Safe Carcognitive systems, embedded
  systems, verification, M2M, positioning
  technologies, 4G wireless, software development
  frameworks, control theory
• The Multilingual Companionlanguage technology,
  cross-lingual information extraction and
  retrieval, mobile communication technologies
• The Service Robot Companioncognitive systems,
  affective computing, multimodal dialogue,
  artificial intelligence
• The Self-Monitoring and Self-Repairing
  Computercontrol theory, software methods,
  architecture

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• The Internet Police Agentsoftware agents,
  multiagent systems, security, information
  extraction, data mining
• The Disease and Treatment Simulatorbioinformatic
  s, visualization, event simulation, data mining,
  ontology-based simulation, probabilistic and
  model-driven prediction
• The Augmented Personal Memorysensors, user
  modelling, multimodal fusion, information
  extraction and mining, positioning technologies,
  data capture
• The Pervasive Communication Jacket4G mobile
  networks, wearables, ABC technologies, multimodal
  dialogue, biosensor fusion, location-based
  services

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• The Personal Everywhere Visualisernew display
  technologies, graphics visualization, image
  understanding, multimodal interaction
• The Ultra-light Aerial Transport Agentcognitive
  robotics, sensor fusion, multimodal dialogue
• The Intelligent Retail Storesmart labels,
  tracking and tracing, user modeling, plan
  recognition, location-based services, privacy,
  security

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ISTAG WG Grand ICT/IST Challenges

• OVERVIEW
• The 100 Safe CarRoadway accidents entail
  enormous human suffering and burden European
  society with tremendous economic costs. Hence, we
  envision projects with ICT systems leading the
  realisation of the 100 safe automobile for
  eliminating traffic fatalities almost completely.
• The Multilingual Companion With the enlargement
  to 25 Member States, the EU faces a new
  multi-lingual challenge. We envision grand
  projects to defeat the communication barrier
  between member states by developing a powerful
  multi-lingual companion that will make
  multilingual and cross-lingual information access
  and communication virtually automatic.

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• The Service Robot Companion for the ElderlyAs
  the European population ages, spiralling
  health-related costs will place an immense burden
  on European economies. We envision the
  development of flexible home-care service robots,
  which will help people to care for themselves,
  improve their comfort of living and likely
  entertain them.
• The Self-Monitoring and Self-Repairing Computer
  System failures are extremely costly and all too
  frequent in todays complex ICT systems. We
  envision a grand challenge to develop
  self-monitoring and self-repairing computing
  systems that will demonstrate the principle of
  software systems with greatly improved
  reliability.

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• The Internet Police AgentTo reap the full
  benefits of the Internet, we must maintain its
  further development and counter criminal and
  anti-social activities (SPAM, viruses, worms,
  fraud, etc.). We envision projects to develop an
  automated police agent that will be a socially
  beneficial force within the Internet environment.
• The Disease and Treatment SimulatorWe envision
  the development of a computational platform for
  simulating the function of a concrete disease.
  This simulator will enable medicines to be tested
  without putting people at risk, and will
  accelerate research into damaging diseases such
  as heart disease and cancer.

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• The Augmented Personal MemoryThe ICT revolution
  will make it possible to store virtually every
  image, film or television program you have ever
  seen, every conversation you have ever had or
  book you have read. We envision a project that
  will make it possible for people to create,
  preserve, sort and retrieve their own personal
  vast storehouse of the past, in the form of a
  personalised digital life diary and augmented
  memory assistant.
• The Pervasive Communication JacketMost objects
  in the house, at work or in public spaces will
  soon carry wireless communications technology. We
  envision a communications jacket that will
  enable the individual of tomorrow to exploit
  these information resources in a natural and
  beneficial way.

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• The Personal Everywhere VisualiserVisualisation
  is key for people to exploit the information
  revolution. A grand challenge is to develop a
  convenient personal and mobile visualisation
  system that will work anywhere and with minimal
  fuss, thereby enhancing our ability to harness
  tomorrows ICT capabilities.
• The Ultra-light Aerial Transport AgentWe
  envision an unmanned aerial transport agent for
  small scale logistics for the transport of
  small packages and products from point to point,
  monitoring of crime, and helping in search and
  rescue operations.
• The Intelligent Retail StoreWe envision
  projects to realise the intelligent retail
  store a store in which emerging ICT
  technologies are integrated in a way that brings
  more information, and efficiency to both
  retailers and their customers alike.

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ISTAG WG Europe Wide Initiatives
ISTAG Members in the Working Group Paul t Hoen
(Chair, Chairman ICT-Forum, The Netherlands)
Diana Hodgins (Rapporteur, Managing Director,
European Technologies for Business, Ltd, UK Mart
Laar (Member of Parliament, Estonia) Jerzy
Langer (Advisor of the President, Polish Academy
of Science, Poland) Paul Mehring (Chairman
ITEA) Peter Tancig (General Secretary, The
Researchers Association of Slovenia, Slovenia)
Mikko Uusitalo (Manager, Research Cooperation,
Nokia, Finland) External Experts in the Working
GroupD Augello, J-C Burgelman, A Bradier, D
Broster, K Ducatel, M Gonzales Sancho, J-C Healy,
N Hoose, I Iakovides, J Jaskalaainen, T Norgall,
Y Pandaveine, V Reilly, B Ulmer
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ISTAG WG Europe Wide Initiatives

• RATIONALE (ISTAGs report on Ami from vision to
  reality, Oct-2003)
• European-wide AmI initiatives that promote and
  advance European research and technology and
  capitalise on financial mechanisms such as public
  procurement. Such initiatives need to be
  conducted at European level to ensure critical
  mass, risk sharing and cross-border
  implementations. They should be large scale and
  visionary, and harness the concentrated
  expertise, knowledge and capabilities of European
  personnel in the pursuit of identifiable
  objectives that will benefit European society and
  industry.
• Such initiatives should come in addition to, and
  in combination with a strong support to long and
  medium term (and/or high risk) research that is
  done within research programmes. They would
  ensure a closer articulation between research and
  implementation actions and support the transfer
  of very advanced technology progress into
  applications.Member States should sign up to
  such initiatives in order to bring all areas up
  to the same standard and ensure interoperability
  and coherence.

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ISTAG WG Europe Wide Initiatives

• PROPOSED CRITERIA
• European dimension creating critical mass in
  Europe
• Urgency (from society perspective) and political
  support
• Enhancing competitiveness, and providing a long
  term impact (gt 5 years) on Europes IST position
• AMI based or building on other existing focus
  areas of expertise
• Not already pushed by existing market/
  programmes/ initiatives

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ISTAG WG Europe Wide Initiatives

• 3 content (OUT OF 18) AREAS 1 supportive
• Health
• Road Safety
• eGovernment
• Science Information and Collaboration
  Infrastructure

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ISTAG WG Europe Wide Initiatives

• PROBLEMS-1
• Faltering realisation of Lisbon objectives
  (knowledge-based economy / society)
• Elements of protoERA ltlt ERA ltlt ERIA
• Self-sufficiency and fragmentation of research
  communities both on national and EU levels
• Not enough links between academic and business
  worlds
• Absent integration of major components / facets
  of innovation based economy

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ISTAG WG Europe Wide Initiatives

• PROBLEMS-2
• Suboptimal performance of 10 new member states in
  FP6
• Leaving aside available RTD resources
• Lost development opportunities stemming from
  successful RTD
• Funds from approved projects lt fees paid
• Politically untenable in mid / (short?)-term
  perspective
• Partial list of reasons / causes (in falling
  importance)
• Lack of contacts, information, experience,
  understanding RTDI
• Absence of conducive social and business
  environments
• Lack of social intelligence (e.g. forms
  filling)
• Lack of research competence

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Partial (but Powerful) Answers - Text
_____________________________ KIS Knowledge
Intensive Service
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Partial (but Powerful) Answers - Text

• Integrated - ICT based - set of tools and
  environments for knowing each other better and
  working closer
• Catalogues / Infosystems on RTD capacities,
  experiences, practices, openess, readiness for
  co-operation / collaboration
• Virtual knowledge / expert communities (from
  virtual laboratories to virtual institutes and
  thematic / tehnological networks)
• Co-operation / collaboration facilitating
  environments
• Access to supportive Knowledge Intensive Services
  (e.g. evaluation, standards, testing,
  certification, special expertise)
• Other supportive / facilitating functions (e.g.
  IPR, legal / contractual issues, financial
  resources)
• Essential integrating / unifying factor /
  featureknowledge (re)presentation (cf. Lisbon
  knowledge economy)
• Equally essential intermediary / bridging
  structures / functions / services / experts

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Examples of Collaboration EnvironmentsFirst
AMI_at_Work Communities
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First Ambient Intelligence _at_Work Communities

• Horizontal communities (technology themes SEEM)
• Collaboration_at_Work
• Knowledge_at_Work
• Mobility_at_Work
• SEEM_at_Work (Single European Electronic Market)
• Vertical communities (challenging validation
  environments)
• Rural_at_Work (Rural Information Society, Extended
  AgriFood Products and Services)
• Product Life-Cycle Management _at_Work
  (Sustainability, Individualisation and
  Interoperability for Products, Services and
  Environments)
• Well-being Services _at_Work (Well-being, Health
  Sector and Social Services Citizen-centric Value
  Network of Professionals)
• Media_at_Work (Media and Content Work New
  Opportunities and Challenges new, provisional
  community)