FP7 Networked Media Concertation Meeting

On April 16 and 17, 2008 Touradj Ebrahimi (EPFL) and I attended the first FP7 networked media concertation meeting, representing the NoE PetaMedia. On the first day, the cluster meeting on AV search engines was held. What did I take away from that first day?

(Vilamoura, south of Portugal, location of the first FP7 Networked Media concertation)

First, being present at such concertation gave me a lot of insight in the inner workings of FP7 program. A lot of information and upcoming developments and choices in FP7 calls can be inferred from the discussions during the concertation. This is pretty useful making sure you are in the right (sweet) spot for future calls and projects.

Second, three issues were quite interesting to me.

1. A lot of momentum is being created around evaluation methodolodies and standards for AV search engines. In other words, the challenge is not to design 'yet another' AV search engine, but to come up with means to evaluate the existing ones (and the ideas about new ones). I guess I witnessed the conception of a new FP7 project? Along the same lines, the question is if we can come up with a standard architecture for search engines, so that research and new development can be placed within the context of such architecture.


2. With the increasing power of search engines privacy becomes more and more of an issue. Ramon Campano of the EC gave a very powerful presentation showing that the challenge is not to design yet another AV search engine, but to focus research on the privacy and trustworthiness aspects of the current and future AV search engines. This presentation actually connected very well to my dies natalis presentation, entitled "Get Real: Refelctions on Trustworthy Virtuality", see http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/pub/inald/Dies_Inald_Lagendijk_22min.wmv for the reording of the presentation and http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/pub/inald/ScriptDiesNatalis2008.pdf for the script.


3. A lot of momentum is being created around the larger European Technology and Innovation platforms, the JTI's and EIIT's. It seems that these European platforms -- connected to national initiatives -- are going to play an important role in FP8?

The second day was the Network Media concertation. The head-of-unit Networked MediaSystems (D.2), DG-INFSO European Commission - Luis Rodríguez-Roselló - gave an interesting overview of current projects and the challenges for the years to come (Future Internet, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL, http://www.aal-europe.eu/). I guess privacy and trustworthiness is also going to be high on the agenda. FYI, have a look at the following two (technology-push) solutions:

• http://www.speedproject.eu/


• http://www.emitall.com/

After Luis' presentation, things became less interesting. I had a nice chat with Gary Sullivan (Microsoft) about the ongoing MPEG video standardizations, and with Narciso Garcia (UPM) about an upcoming visit to Madrid.

Some excitement was generated by the french-dominated project Quaero (http://www.quaero.org/). This project is said to become the European counterpart of Google, and/but is heavily funded by the EC (99 MEuro) and French government. Taking into account other French national initiatives (such as the poles de competitivite -- http://www.competitivite.gouv.fr/spip.php?rubrique36&lang=en), it is clear that France is heavily investing in innovation and is on its way to taking the (at least financial) lead in several information society areas. The Netherlands would do well to follow this example and allocate substantial budgets to the Innovation Platforms. There is no time to waste!

ICT-Kring "Proximity Tour" Study Trip to Silicon Valley (March 29 - April 6, 2008)

The ICT-kring (ICT association) Delft celebrates its first lustrum with a symposium on May 22, 2008 and a study trip to Silicon Valley. Together with Daan Lenstra (dean Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, TU Delft), Geerlinge Pessers (secretary general) and Laura Zondervan (program manager Delft Research Center on ICT), I represented TU Delft on this study trip. FYI, I attended in my capacity as scientific director of the Delft Research Center on ICT. Other participants were about 15 ICT companies, TNO-ICT, and the vice mayor of Delft (economics affair portfolio).

Several participant have reported on the trip via their blogs (with a lot of pictures), have a look at the index page http://www.ictkring-delft.nl/volg-de-weblogs-over-de-studiereis-door-silicon-valley-139.html. A short news item was broadcasted by TV West in the program Questie van Zaken on April 12, 2008, see: http://televisie.westonline.nl/mms_video/2008%252F1204-zaken.wmv (goto last 4 minutes).














I will limit myself to summarizing personal lessons learned during this trip.

• The success of Silicon Valley has not only to do with the presence of excellence universities (Berkeley, Stanford) and investors, but very much with the culture and willingness to take *personal* risks. Starting a company requires not only investors to put a lot of their money at stake, but also the entrepreneurs involved to bet their "financial lifes" on the success. In Europe/Netherlands, many entrepeneurial initiatives rely on national or EU grants, without the need to take personal risks. This culturally deeply embedded risk avoidance is one of the big difference between Silicon Valley and Europe. Do we want to change that, and if so, how?


• The difference in attitude or even culture toward one's education and career is remarkable. In the Netherlands, it is accepted that a student fails an exam one or multiple times, but failing in the professional career is unacceptable. In the US, it is rather the opposite. Failing an exam is fatal, but failing to get a company started adds to one's credibility...


• Role models are very important in Silicon Valley. The entrepreneurial spirit is all over the place, may living examples are around, and one cannot avoid running into entrepreneurs, business angels, and capital investors on a weekly basis. Entrepreneurship seems to be talk of the town. In the Netherlands the situation is far from that. If we are serious about entrepreneurship, we need more role models. Bring them over from the US!


• Silicon Valley is what it is and it is unlikely that another region worldwide will soon take over. I recon that the best bet for the Delft region is to become a "gateway to Silicon Valley". Start-ups incubate and grow in the Delft region, but if things get serious, they move to Silicon Valley. Some people say this is a bad thing, but my take on this is that being the gateway to Silicon Valley is a position that is to be preferred over what we currently have.


• The Netherlands has a very good name in Silicon Valley. The image is that Dutch are liberal and open-minded, the state of technology is very advanced (thanks TU Delft!) and people are very accessible because we all speak English quite well and because of our frankness (not to say boldness): what you hear is what you get. We have met multiple organizations in Silicon Valley that are eager to setup partnerships with Dutch counterparts. Let's create and advertise those counterparts!

So, the trip was really worthwhile. I believe that thanks to this trip, future connections between ICT companies and TU Delft/ICT research will become a quite a bit easier. I have to say that jointly digesting the information offered to us by the variety of companies, business angels, investors, and academicians was crucial to that. But also the joint digesting of food and music has played an important role!

Is blogging useful to me?

While attending the first FP7 Networked Media concertation meeting in Vilamoura (Algarve, Portugal), my colleague and good friend Touradj Ebrahimi (EPFL) convinced me that blogging is actually a useful activity. Sofar I thought that blogging is just a digital form of exhibisionism, but he claimed that he often refers to his blog (see http://touradjebrahimi.blogspot.com/) to avoid repeating the same explanation over and over again to different people. This sounds quite attractive to me. Another thing I realized while talking to him and looking at his blog, is that a blog is a particular form of outsourcing my memory, much like note books, sticky notes, to do lists, and photographs of white boards (of which I have a lot). Maybe I should look for some serious publications on the art and usefulness of blogging to find more justification. Any suggestions are more than welcome. But then, maybe it is also just a matter of trying out new technology that younger generations accept "as is" and that us - the old horses in the field who actually contributed to making all this technology possible - should make an effort to get involved. Well, this is my effort :-).

So, here is my blog page and it will be an interesting experience to see if I can get the damn thing up to date. Touradj claims it takes him 15 minutes to write his weekly blog, every saturday morning. We will see! He also insists that blogs should be short and relevant. At this point, the only thee relevant issues in this blog are: "(1) I started a (2) blog because of (3) Touradj". Evidence for issue (2) is the blog itself, for the other two I included a photograph as evidence.

That's me enjoying a lunch in Vilamoura.
And that's Touradj.