Great iMinds think alike - iMinds 2010

iMinds 2010

The iMinds conference kicked off with an inspiring talk of Peter Hirshberg on ‘The Internet Of Things’. His claims “everything that can be transmitted will be transmitted”. The amount of data created has caused a shift in the offerings of companies, moving from products to services. We use these vast amounts of data to offer tailor made services to the end user.

Hirshberg came up with a set of great examples, like the one about the ‘digital’ bottle you take along when you go jogging. The bottle warns you when you risk getting dehydrated. The bottle is connected to the internet and also takes into account your pulse and your breathing… Innovation is no longer the domain of huge slow R&D departments, Hirshberg says. Anything can be invented, thanks to the input of business partners and customers alike. 

Closely connected to this theme, the iMinds conference also hosted the INCA award ceremony. INCA (Innovative and Creative Applications) awarded prizes for the best innovations for an inclusive society. The inventors of ‘shoppy’, the ‘social shopping buddy’ were awarded the first prize.

Central role for the end users

Presenters from the IT-sector explained during the plenary sessions in the morning how inventive their companies are. Chairman Herbert Andrew of Microsoft Research EMEA focused on the interconnectivity between data, cloud and client. The enormous amount of available data needs to be stored somewhere and cloud computing is an ideal solution for this. The cloud can help young companies as they can allow the solution to grow at the same pace as the company. 

CEO Michel Akkermans of  Clear2Pay said that internet, technology and innovation will not in themselves lead to success. They need to be tested in the market and directed at the consumer. Clear2Pay developed an ‘open payment framework’ with tailor made solutions for banks and enterprises.

CEO Lieven Danneels of  Televic, pleaded for an attitude shift in innovation: companies must go for external, open innovation with a focus on the end user. We need to start learning Web 2.0.

Break-out session

A series of break-out sessions covered four themes.

1. In the session on ‘venturing’, the focus was on recent events concerning innovation in Flanders and Europe. The numbers are promising, but Europe lags behind when it comes to entrepreneurship. This is in part caused by the lack of seed money and the uncertainty of the Return on Investment (ROI).
   
   
2. Three speakers tackled the theme ‘immersive experiences’. Oliver Schreer demonstrated solutions for immersive 3D video communications. Philippe Bekaert (IBBT) offered solutions to bridge the gap between computer graphics and video and Jean-Francois Macq (Bell Labs) finished the session by pointing to some of the challenges on the road to immersive and interactive video entertainment.
   
   
3. 'Green ICT' was the subject of the third break-out session. The IT-sector is at once one of the big consumers of energy, but also one of the leaders in finding solutions for this challenge. During this session, a thorough analysis was made and an overview was given on a number of initiatives to reduce energy consumption.
   
   
4. The fourth theme, ‘Media Value Chain’ dealt with the influence of digitization of the media in all its aspects, from the production process to the archival of audiovisual material.

Digitization of the media

Nico Verplancke (IBBT) discussed the journey to the realization of a Flemish Institute of Archiving. This institute has been approved of by the Flemish government and wants to create an audiovisual memory by centralizing the entire audiovisual heritage of Flanders. The idea will take the shape of the ‘Waalse Krook’ in Ghent, which will be both a new media center and a physical meeting place.

Herbert van de Sompel  of the Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrated his ‘Memento’ application which allows time travel by retrieving old information published on the web. 

Sape Mullender (Bell Labs) discussed the crucial role of ‘Cloud Computing’ in a changing media landscape. We are getting ever more mobile and have more devices we want to play media on. This demands a solid infrastructure.

This break-out session was closed by Peter Hinssen (Across Technology) who gave his vision on the Belgian public broadcaster VRT. The last 20 years were about becoming digital. The next decades will be spent making smart use of all things digital.

Strengthening Europe

The last plenary session gave both industry and government a platform to talk about Future Internet.

CEO Ben Verwaayen of Alcatel Lucent defended the industry’s point of view by stressing the fact that companies need to work together with authorities and competitors to consolidate Europe’s competitiveness.

European Commissioner Neelie Kroes wasn’t able to attend in person, but in a taped message, she claimed that a new digital ecosystems is crucial for Europe’s competiveness.

Investing in innovation is important and it is the governments’ role to support this.

Prince Constantijn of Oranje-Nassau confirmed this and said government investments in innovation should not be limited. Investment in ICT work in the long run and make Europe attractive for foreign investors.