Creating an innovation HUB for the Next Generation Internet Community

About the Next Generation Internet initiative

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, launched by the European Commission in autumn 2016, aims to shape the future internet as an interoperable platform ecosystem that embodies the values that Europe holds dear: openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data.

The NGI should ensure that the increased connectivity and the progressive adoption of advanced concepts and methodologies (spanning across several domains such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, interactive technologies, etc.) drive this technology revolution, while contributing to making the future internet more human-centric.

As recently presented by the European Commission at the Net Futures 2017 conference, the main goals of NGI are to:

1. Defragment and connect:
   • Create and assist the creation of a pan-European ecosystem.
   • Ensure that such an ecosystem reaches beyond the ICT scene.
2. Engage new stakeholders, which might not have been necessarily involved in related EC initiatives, so as to ensure new ideas and “fresh blood” to inject into the overall ecosystem.
3. Link long-term research with applied research and innovation, with policy and societal expectations.
4. Promote new functionality, services, applications and technologies to support people’s lives & global sustainability.
5. Reflect and promote the European core values: openness, security, privacy and participation, to create a level playing field for all business actors, open to innovation and preserving democracy.
6. A European movement for a human Internet as a political objective that can be shared across.

This ambitious vision requires the involvement of the best Internet researchers and innovators to address technological opportunities arising from cross-links and advances in various research fields ranging from network infrastructures to platforms, from application domains to social innovation.

The HUB4NGI Role and Ongoing Work

The HUB4NGI project, an EC funded H2020 CSA that Martel is leading as coordinator and responsible for the communication, plays a key role by providing help and contribute to the overall success of the NGI initiative in several ways. By creating an innovation “hub” for the NGI, the HUB4NGI aims indeed to:

• Contribute to ground the NGI vision, defining research scope and priorities, building the community and engaging key players.
• Facilitate contributions to the NGI from technological opportunities arising from cross-links and advances in various related R&D fields.
• Contribute to the NGI roadmap definition to help shaping and defining its future, including recommendations for WP 2018-2020 and FP9.

This has already led so several concrete outcomes and ongoing activities, such as the creation of the NGI Online Map, the creation and animation of the HUB4NGI portal, and the organisation of the upcoming NGI Forum, which will be held in Barcelona (Spain) on the 13 September 2017.

 The NGI Forum – the place to meet future Internet innovators and researchers

The Next Generation Internet Forum aims to gather together prominent actors that through their work and active engagement in various R&D areas are indeed paving the way to design, build and refine the Internet of tomorrow.

The NGI Forum is an opportunity to share knowledge with leading experts from across a variety of disciplines, including privacy and trust technologies, decentralised data governance, discovery and identification, edge intelligence, etc.

While attending, you can contribute to the dialogue on the best way to meet the ambitious goals, and contribute to mapping the NGI ecosystem. The event will be structured using a mixture of specialist talks, open discussions and interactive working groups, with an emphasis will be on stimulating discussion and the free exchange of ideas between members of the research community, SMEs & startups, industry, policy makers, and civil society.

So register now from HERE and join Martel at the NGI Forum  – registration is free, but places are limited!

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