FUTURE INTERNET
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The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks and carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), infrastructure to communication as email and telephony and data transfer as file sharing, streaming media and webcams.

With the growing consolidation of network operators at member-state level and the ‘Connected Continent’ package currently stalled, the latest CEPS Digital Forum seminar addressed concerns about network infrastructure, spectrum management and whether the goal of achieving an effective digital single market (DSM) for Europe was realistic. WIK-Consult stressed that the DSM cannot be achieved solely by making regulation stricter or more consistent; a broad vision based on innovative policy instruments is needed for the benefit of consumers and for the sake of EU leadership in innovation. Telecom Paris Tech agreed and highlighted the critical impact on areas of massive communications such as transportation, smart cities, health and education, while Amazon reflected on the upward trend of cross-border sales and the urge to harness the full potential of e-commerce in Europe and Odyssey connects governments, corporates and non-profits with innovative entrepreneurs from around the world to let them jointly tackle 21st-century challenges in order to create together an interconnected, multi-stakeholder ecosystem to build a future.

High Performance Computing (HPC):
New supercomputer’s (Frontier) monumental performance marks a new era in artificial intelligence, scientific research, and innovation that will solve calculations up to 10X faster than today’s top supercomputers2, and tackle problems that are 8X more complex
   

 

THE INTERNET | accountability | Digital Social Innovation (DSI) and Collective Awareness Platforms (CAPS) | The PARADISO Organization (FUTURE INTERNET AND SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENTS)

 

THE INTERNET  
The Internet, created in the '70s by Darpa (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), has changed the way we communicate, share knowledge, socialize or do business on a true global level. The vast majority of the users treat the internet with respect. For example, Internet Society provides an organizational home for and financial support for the Internet standards process and focuses on building and supporting the communities that make the Internet work; advancing the development and application of Internet infrastructure, technologies, and open standards; and advocating for policy that is consistent with our view of the Internet.
 
However, we also witness a growing misuse of the Internet, it's certainly not art of written work. Examples of fake news, pirating, cyber bullying, flaming or Identity theft are daily news pose serious challenges to the accountability of the net.

Accountability for their acts and omissions and under certain conditions of the malign utilization of their infrastructure. This triggered to create the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID), which has the objectives the protection of private integrity and of social values (i.e. democratic values) on the internet.

 
The Internet does not own and is open to everyone. Content inside the Internet depends on (local) behaviour, the composition of Internet users is very diverse and so are involved organizations facilitating internet (providers, platforms, telecoms). However, there are several organizations dealing with Internet Governance (eg Global Commission on Internet Governance, ICANN), pay attention to further development in use (UNESCO and World Wide Web Consortium) and to regulations (the European Commission): EU / Digital Single Market (DSM) on Internet Accountability and modernized EU privacy rules (ePrivacy Directive).
Shaping Europe's
Digital Future

Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative
   
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network (typically the Internet). Cloud computing provides computation, software applications, data access, data management and storage resources without requiring cloud
users to know the location and other details of the computing infrastructure. End users access cloud based applications through a web browser or a light weight desktop or mobile app while
the business software and data are stored on servers at a remote location.
Cloud application providers strive to give the same or better service and performance than if the software programs were installed locally on end-user computers.
 

 

  accountability

 

Digital Social Innovation (DSI) and Collective Awareness Platforms (CAPS)  
Digital Social Innovation (DSI) exploits collective intelligence and mass collaboration enabled by the internet’s network effect. A new study, commissioned by DG CONNECT and run by Nesta, in partnership with the Waag Society, ESADE, IRI and Future Everything, aims to crowd-map the actors, networks, initiatives and drivers of DSI from a multidisciplinary ICT and socio-economic perspective.

From that evidence, by next year they will identify the best innovation strategies combining research, strategy and policy recommendations for DSI in relation to the Digital Agenda for Europe and Horizon 2020 (H2020). The Collective Awareness Call for proposals addresses DSI under the H2020 work programme (see presentation 'Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation').

Some of the best examples of DSI in Europe that are transforming governments, businesses and society include:

 
  • cities like Vienna and Santander pioneering new practices in open data and open sensor networks;
  • personal networks like Tyze integrating with traditional social-care provision;
  • sharing economy platforms like Peerby creating new forms of relationships and services;
  • new projects pioneering open democracy and citizens participation through crowd-sourcing legislation, such as Open Ministry, Liquid Feedback or AVAAZ, which are transforming the traditional models of representative democracy;
  • organisations like Mysociety and Open Knowledge Foundation developing services like Fixmystreet allowing citizens to report city problems, and CKAN, the biggest repository of open data in Europe.
 

What is truly disruptive in these projects is the combination of new digital tools (open data, open networks, open hardware and knowledge co-creation networks) and a culture and practice of sharing at a scale that was unimaginable before the rise of the internet.

The unusual thing is that this study specifically looks at civil society organisations, non-profit NGOs, social movements, and civic innovators (developers, hackers, designers) as key stakeholders in support of innovation for social good and active citizenship in the EU.

Too often in the past, civil society organisations were ignored or left behind in the big picture of a top-down technology push (e.g. supply-side approach to Big Data and Big Brother) typical of large top-down innovation programmes.

 
Unlike traditional innovation actions, DSI and Collective Awareness Platforms are motivated by the vision of building a grass-roots civic innovation ecosystem in Europe to unleash the potential of collective intelligence. This takes into account how innovation can spread across the entire society, as well as how small but significant innovation projects can scale up and be replicated across Europe to solve societal challenges, such as building better health, education, mobility and ultimately improving democracy and redesigning socio-economic models.

The value of this DSI experiment is difficult to quantify using traditional indicators of success and impact, such as GDP, profitability and competitiveness. New sustainable business models and socio-economic mechanisms based on collective and public benefit are starting to clearly emerge. Once the network of DSI actors in Europe is mapped and its dynamics understood, it will inform future EU initiatives, research and policy to foster open and inclusive innovation for social good in Europe.



on the internet of things
CAPS2014, collective awareness platforms for sustainability and social innovation, (CAPS) are ICT systems leveraging the emerging “network effect” by combining open online social media, distributed knowledge creation and data from real environments (“Internet of Things”) in order to create awareness of problems and possible solutions requesting collective efforts, enabling new forms of social innovation

On July 1, CAPS2014 organized the CAPS2014 OFF part of the event, held at The Egg, which offered a dynamic schedule of talks, unconferences, workshops, hands-on sessions and networking moments and on July 2, the CAPS2014 Conference part, held at the European Commission, which provided participants with an overview of current projects and initiatives, and with detailed information of the CAPS Call under horizon 2020.

Online communities have been playing an increasingly important role in supporting grassroots initiatives in the area of social innovation and sustainability. However, as such platforms go larger and larger, it is more and more difficult for community managers to ensure efficient debates among citizens, i.e. to ensure collective ideation, decision and action. The CATALYST project partners, tackling this issue, have been developing and testing collective intelligence tools and will make them available, as open source solutions, to any interested communities.

The Web is today increasingly more enmeshed with our daily lives, forming a universally distributed intelligence constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills and tools for “collective intelligence”.  New attractors are collaboration, sharing, hosting and facilitating, interoperability, friendliness, balancing, stakeholder coordination. The old ones competition, isolation in patents, copyright, violence, ego, originality are fading and will never be able to manifest themselves in that iteration. Things are thus getting serious and they are getting clear.

It is not the current growing collaborative ecology that is in trouble. It is the policy ecology, the 19th century pillars that institutionalized data, information and knowledge into rigid formats that were tuned to a theory-practice dichotomy. We are in realtime and the disruption is total. The next CAPS should target co-creation not only with citizens, but with institutions, democracy and the EU project itself targeting decision making processes and making the step for product and service design to system design.

Internet of Things, full traceability and monitoring in all domains, on all levels will be both a huge driver of transparency in decision making as well as a particular kind of cybernetic operation itself. If we want a smart Europe for all and not just a few smart gated communities with seamless connectivity, we have to start prototyping new forms of decision making harnessed in real world environments, that are no longer projects or demo, but constitute a deep aligning of semi autonomous operations with the way decisions on infrastructure, services and applications are made on local, regional, national and supranational levels.

 

  The PARADISO Organization
To provide the initiative of avoiding major risks of breakdown with a more sustainable framework PARADISO established The PARADISO Foundation. The organization will extend present activities in terms of scope, nature, and targeted impact. It will promote and support the development of ICT products, services, projects and initiatives contributing to a more global sustainable future. Among planned activities also promotion, open events, research, publications, support for innovative projects and initiatives. The targeted impact is far beyond the ICT research community and includes the public at large.
ICT progress: participating the webcast on European labour market perspectives during the symposium

Read the speech from Neelie Kroes 08-09-2011 at Paradiso on the internet and society, and the role of public authorities

In continuity with the 2011 conference, PARADISO organised 15 December 2011 the symposium 'ICT for a GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FUTURE and included speeches and presentations from key experts and invited participants to discuss how to promote and support ICT solutions, projects and initiatives contributing to a more sustainable future, and to identify promising projects and initiatives to be launched. Representatives of the European Commission, business, universities and ngo's delivered captivating views on a transition to a paradigma shift. The Symposium included speeches and presentations from key experts and invited participants to discuss how to promote and support ICT solutions, projects and initiatives contributing to a more sustainable future, and to identify promising projects and initiatives to be launched. The event also included the announcement of the 1st Award of the PARADISO Foundation.

INTERNET and SOCIETES - NEW INNOVATION PATHS

A conference that is set to be one of the few major global events of 2011 focusing on Future Internet issues. The 2011 edition was, similarly to the one of 2009, a high-level international conference, including contributions from keynote speakers from all over the world. The event main objective will be to reach a better understanding of the possible and probable interactions between Internet and societal developments in the next decades, from which recommendations on innovative research areas and applications to explore can be derived.

In a world of accelerating changes, and at a time when economic, social, and environmental risks of breakdowns are in sight, forward-looking approaches are of paramount importance. This applies in particular to the development of the Internet, which has become so central to economic activity and day-to-day life in societies around the world.

The internet can not only impact and transform societies in the long term but has also to be adapted to the needs of tomorrow’s societies particularly if societal paradigm shifts are envisioned and if a true sustainable future is targeted.

The PARADISO project has explored the foreseeable interactions between Internet and societal developments in the next decades, identified new innovation paths, and suggested recommendations on research to be developed under the European Union’s 8th framework programme. In the light of this work it has published, with the support of the PARADISO high-level expert panel, a CALL FOR ACTION, addressing in particular the need of EXPLORING THE INTERNET AT ITS LIMITS.

If we want to make a better world, we have to ask ourselves where to start and we have to think of paradigms shifts, future focussed and of the present state of the US, Europe and the Arab uprise. Bring human mind back to emotions, to nature. New economic systems to secure our common future, ways to prevent and to stop wars.

Marc Luycks Ghisi, former member of the "Foresight Studies Unit" of European Commission's President, looked at the future of our societies and presented 'ICT, a new civilization.

Around 450 participants from 40 countries have participated in the conference organized with the support of PARADISO at the European Commission in Brussels from 7 to 9, 2011, on the theme “Internet and societies: new innovation paths”. The event was supported by several leading institutions and included the 2nd edition of the “PARADISO international conference” (on Sept. 7-8) during which PARADISO recommendations to the European Commission regarding research topics to be addressed in future EU-funded programmes were presented.
It also included (on Sept. 9) the 1st “Dialogue on
Platforms for collective awareness and action, a one-day workshop to contribute identifying related multidisciplinary research priorities for the last Call of FP7 and for FP8.

Read the details of the conference in the overall report.

In Europe and around the world, Paradiso also arranged a childrens drawing contest on how the internet will affect their future. We imagined that when we want to access the Internet, we can make everything the way we want, for example change the colour of the wall without using paint.


I want internet to do my homework
Marc Luycks Ghisi on collective suicide (CO2), towards a new civilization, don't look at the wave but to the underlying sea, intellect not yet ready for emotion. ICT building resilience within societies, Robert Madelin (EC DG Infso)

FUTURE INTERNET AND SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENTS (the continuation of ICT for a Global Sustainable Future):

Internet is by far the biggest artifact mankind built. On 23 November 2010
PARADISO organised follow-up workshops. The subject, themes and the presence of 150 participants, including 20 speakers from various fields, made it fully worth to join the high leveled gathering. A whole day agenda four sessions and a discussion on visions of the future of our societies and visions of the future internet.

Representatives from the European Commission, European Council, Club of Rome, universities, telecom companies, scientists and researchers cleared the connections between internet and all other aspects of human life, such as economy, physology, technology and social aspects and made the link between future internet and future societies understandable.

European Commission, Council of Europe, Club of Rome Workshop
The main objective of PARADISO activities is to explore how might or should our societies evolve in the next decades (a probable paradigm shift) and to derive from this analysis how can Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and the Future Internet in particular, contribute to making this future better. Doing so, PARADISO proposes to follow an approach “starting from the planet” which could usefully complement the traditional approach (whenaddressing progress in ICT) “starting from the user”. The situation in the year 2030 will be completely different from 2000. Not only internet is changing, but also societies. Power should be given to the end user and not result in monopoly. Till 2020 smart (innovation, education and digital society), sustainable (climate, energy, mobility and competitiveness) and inclusive growth (employment, fighting poverty) is in front. Used was Dantzig's serial paper from 1999, wherein linear programming under uncertainty is described.

The main findings, based on various inputs including those from any interested stakeholders contributing through the online consultation, the PARADISO social networks, their participation in project events, etc. is detailed in the “PARADISO reference document”. The document includes technical specification of the envisioned Future Internet and recommendations to the European Commission on research topics to be addressed in future EU-funded programmes.

 
Presentations:

Lynn St Amour, President & CEO, The Internet Society (presented by Frederic Donck, Director European Regional Bureau at ISOC)

Michael Remmert, Deputy Head, Directorate of Policy Planning, Directorate General of Democracy and Political Affairs, Council of Europe: Understanding the interactions between Internet and societal developments

Visions of the future of our societies, chaired by Ziga Turk, Secretary General, Reflection Group on the Future of Europe: Internet does change everything

Peter Johnston, President, International Advisory Committee, Club of Rome: Innovation for Energy and climate security smart green growth

Yves Punie, Senior Scientist, JRC/IPTS: Social Media and User Empowerment a trendo or a vision

Ruben Nelson, Executive Director, Foresight Canada: Civilization transformation At what scale must we consider paradigm change

Afonso Ferreira, Scientific Coordinator for international relations, CNRS - INS2I: The world in the Midst of the digital Revolution and beyond

David Dickinson, Founding Associate, Unlike Minds Limited, UK: Introduction to Unlike Minds Cloud Relevance

Hans van Willenswaard, Project Director, School for Wellbeing Studies and Research, Bangkok: Visions on the future of our societies

Luis Rodriguez-Rosello, Director, Converged Networks & Services Directorate, DG Infso, European Commission: Visions of the Future Internet A European R&D perspective

Sirkka Heinonen, Head of the Technology Futures Forum, VTT, Finland: Future of the Internet Paths to Paradise or to Digital Demise

Dimitri Papadimitriou, Principal research engineer, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs CTO: Vision of the future Internet

Akihiro Nakao, Professor, University of Tokyo, Japan: Advanced Network Virtualization Research projects for Future Internet

Ward Hanson, Policy Forum Director, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research: PARADISO Comments

Lina Shi, Researcher, Institute of Economy and Policy Research, China Academy of Telecommunication Research: The impact of eCommerce on Chinese employment market

Jonathan Cave, Senior Research Fellow, RAND Europe and Senior tutor in Economics, Warwick University: Visions of the Future Internet

Roger Torrenti, PARADISO project coordinator: PARADISO reference document

Roberto Peccei, Vice-Chancellor for research at UCLA and President of the Italian chapter of the Club of Rome: Closing remarks for the 2010 PARADISO workshop


Conference on ICT

Conference on ICT


Jeremy Rifkin: Having access to energy is a fundamental right for all human beings. Store energy'. Conference on ICT, Mansholt room

ICT FOR A GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, a third industrial revolution: Indexes going 'BEYOND GDP', Dasho Karma Ura: GNH.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will play a central role in future, not only
because ICT have become in just two decades a key driver of the development of all countries worldwide, but also because ICT can efficiently contribute to the achievement of the revised economic, social and environmental objectives which this future envisages. Moreover, Europe is undoubtedly well placed to proactively promote this new concept of progress towards a true sustainable future.

In this context, the “ICT for a global sustainable future” conference was organised, with the support of the PARADISO project, on January 22-23, 2009 at the European Commission in Brussels:

  • Opening addresses Today's global challengesVisions of a true sustainable futureThe role of ICT to ensure a global sustainable futureSustainable future: initiatives funded by the EC Future directions for EU ICT research

    Feedback from the PARADISO open consultation

  • Closing session: next steps

An era of change. Acceleration and working together (also with the USA) are keys to make use of possibilites of ict, which forms 20% of GDP. ICT will take care of a break through. It plays a central role as infrastructure and it creates opportunities for all elements in all areas. It will change lifestyle. But implementing the opportunities have to go hand in hand with policy actions. After all, it will transform properties, it can show its inluence on our climate and energy-needs and on our every day life.

ICT creates and shares and we have to rethink how to approach globalisation on fields as finance, energy and climate: organise the energy of this planet first (due to the responsibility for the future generation), then decide how we use it and finally develop a control mechanism. (Societal) Paradigm shifts are needed. Civilizations will change: growth will not remain self-evident and the phenomenon of dematerialize is on the way. Discern the core of the important problems, self-knowledge, being sincere and direct with others, be open for advice, be consistent with ethical beliefs and knowledge are values that will become in front. Webontology and nanocosm. Intelligence will be non-biological and as much more powerful as these days. We are still in the stone age.

ICT must be able to offer low cost networks, easily accessions and solutions to systematic problems. It must also encourage to share data and providing financial support. We need long term thinking and look for a new way of assessing societal progress according to the Istanbul Declaration. Rifkin adressed motorized vehicles versus hybrid, temperature in the buildings versus demand and supply of electricity and underlines to use best practices and make for partnerships, without giving monopoly to anyone. After these statements, this first day ended with attention for trust, privacy, security, (possible) break-downs and elemination of obstacles. There is only one web on everything for everybody.

It is all about people, the rise of the user and it concerns radical (new) ideas and emerging technologies (convergence 3.0). Initiatives have to implemented on global, national and regional level and education and training is necessary to develop the digital literacy.

The event can be considered as having reached its two main objectives: further developing and validating the PARADISO vision and bringing the message towards, if not having it endorsed by, the various political instances of the European Union. But this milestone reached is only a first step and a lot remains to be done, as underlined during the wrap-up session, to influence the political agenda and identify the ICT research areas likely to contribute building a true global sustainable future.

Paradiso reference document (May 2011)

Welcome address World Economic Forum 2009 stated: Breathtaking technologies, which generates a great opportunity for a new wave of economic growth, based on technologies, products and services directly meeting societal needs in eco-efficiency, in healthcare, in transportation, in people empowerment and many more.