NGI at Futur.e.s Festival

Futur.e.s in Paris is one of Europe’s largest innovation festivals. This year’s three-day edition in June attracted more than 22,000 visitors and Martel’s CEO Dr Monique Calisti was in attendance, participating in the Next Generation Internet (NGI) workshop hosted by Cap Digital and organised in cooperation with the European Commission and the New European Media (NEM) Initiative, of which Martel is a member.

Olivier Bringer, deputy and acting head of Next Generation Internet Unit at the European Commission, opened the Futur.e.s Festival session by presenting the Next Generation Internet (NGI) vision, objectives and long-term perspective in view of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. This was followed by a debate “Should Open Data end where Data protection begins?”. Discussions focused on the apparent dilemma between open data and data protection.

The debate highlighted perspectives from different data industry stakeholders: the technologist, the entrepreneur, the lawyer and the European Commission viewpoint. There were four key topics: governance, cross-border internet, business models and education, culture and citizens’ awareness. This gave a detailed picture of the different issues around Open Data and how the NGI initiative is handling them.

In terms of governance, Régis Chatellier, innovation and foresight project manager from the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL), said common regulation on a territory, such the GDPR legislation, enables business collaboration and stimulates companies to invest in Europe as well as setting up a common infrastructure for cross-border services.

From a legal standpoint, Paul Felhinger, deputy director Internet & Jurisdiction, said it was important for Europe to think globally to maintain a cross-border internet. He also emphasized the need to distinguish governance of the internet from governance on the internet.

Chatellier said that companies can attract market share by offering more privacy friendly business models. At the education end of the spectrum, Rehana Schwinninger-Ladak, head of DG Connect’s Data Applications and Creativity Unit, said there was a need for schools to embrace digitization, while retaining a human-centred internet of the future.

Tristan Nitot, advocacy vice-president of search engine Qwant, suggested that one positive of the Cambridge Analytica scandal was it has brought the use of data into the public eye, raising citizens’ awareness of data protection issues.

Rehana Schwinninger-Ladak then presented opportunities to join the NGI ecosystem, outlining open calls ICT-25-2018-2020 and ICT-30-2019.

Finally, HUB4NGI coordinator Dr Monique Calisti presented opportunities for joining the NGI community and encouraged attendees to meet at the next NGI Forum in Porto on 13 September 2018. www.ngiforum.eu