CEPIS Newsletter, December In this issue

Transcription

1 CEPIS Newsletter, December 2010 In this issue This month we bring you news about the fruitful 45th CEPIS Council meeting that took place last month in Brussels. The latest activities of the CEPIS Task Forces were presented and new working groups were formed. We encourage all Member Societies to participate by joining these groups. Learn more about the latest public consultations from the European Commission, and how you can participate in the next CEDEFOP conference on skills supply and demand. The latest EU Digital Competitiveness Report and the results of the pan-european cyber 'stress test' are also included. We also include contributions from CEPIS Member Societies in Lithuania, Poland and Spain, LIKS, PIPS and ATI. From the President Call for Participation in New CEPIS Working Groups Have Your Say on Future Funding: Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) European Commission Targets Unemployment with New Initiative: New Skills and Jobs' CYBER EUROPE 2010: Successful Stress Test for Europe CEPIS Task Forces Need You! Call for Papers CEDEFOP Skills Demand and Supply Forecasting Conference Near Consensus on Importance of Open Internet The Digital Competitiveness Report th ATI Software Quality Group Conference LIKS Computer Days 2011 IMCSIT 2010 Conference Report PIPS 14 Million Pieces of European History, Art & Literature Available Online Upcoming Events From the President

2 I am delighted to report on the recent successful 45th Council meeting that took place in Brussels last month. First and foremost allow me to congratulate my fellow Executive Committee members, who were either re-elected or newly elected to their respective positions during Council. Nello Scarabottolo shall be my successor, and was elected as President Elect, with Byron Nicolaides re-elected as Honorary Secretary. Jorg Ruegg from SI became the new Honorary Treasurer for CEPIS, while both Declan Brady from ICS and Djordje Dukic from JISA were elected as Vice Presidents by Council. Malgorzata Kalinowska-Iszkowska remains in the role of Vice President. During the meeting, Council discussed many new and on-going developments relating to the CEPIS Strategy From these discussions and presentations, new Working Groups have been set up, and I encourage all of you to participate in these new initiatives. The existing Green ICT, Professionalism, and Women in ICT Task Forces will benefit from even further participation from CEPIS Members, to build upon their ongoing activities that were presented at Council. I encourage you all further to participate in the new Working Groups created at Council, which will focus on the proposed amendments to the Constitution and Standing Orders, and Membership Fees. As this is the last CEPIS Newsletter for 2010, I would like to wish you all happy holidays and a fruitful New Year. Call for Participation in New CEPIS Working Groups Three new Working Groups were approved during the 45th Council last month related to the following topics. CEPIS Members are invited to participate by using the links below:

3 - Proposed Amendments to the Constitution and Standing Orders - Sign Up - Membership Fees, (Meeting scheduled: Frankfurt, January 21st) - Sign Up In addition a Research Task Force will be formed - Sign Up Member participation is key for all of these Working Groups so that CEPIS Member Societies can allow for their opinions to be heard about any of the above mentioned issues. Once interested Member Societies are identified, meeting dates and next steps will be agreed. If you would like to participate in any of the above new Working Groups please contact Fiona Fanning. Have Your Say on Future Funding: Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) This public consultation is part of an assessment of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) which consists of three operational programmes, including the ICT Policy Support Programme. It is a perfect opportunity for stakeholders to comment on CIP activities and indicate what could be done to improve its possible successor. Those who wish to take part in the consultation can complete the survey that will be available online until 4th February This survey is addressed to any organisations or individuals who wish to give their views on the possible CIP successor s priorities and instruments to raise its effectiveness. Click here to find out more about the public consultation on the CIP European Commission Targets Unemployment with New Initiative: New Skills and Jobs The recently issued initiative aims to reddress the

4 European job market by targeting both unemployment and taking measures to equip Europeans with the right skills. 23 million people are currently unemployed across the EU 10% of the active population which seriously undermines Europe s economic performance. Some sectors, notably IT, health and research are more susceptible to shortages of skilled workers.the European Commission wishes to tackle these issues through 13 key actions that aim to help workers gain the skills necessary to respond to future market requirements, support workforce mobility, improve working conditions, reform labour markets and facilitate the job creation process. The proposal to introduce measures that can enhance both public and private investment in training and education is welcome and should stress that ICT is required as the cornerstone for skilling, re-skilling and up-skilling in all sectors of the economy. Click here to find out more about the initiative CYBER EUROPE 2010: Successful Stress Test for Europe The first ever Pan-European Cyber Security exercise involving 30 European countries took place on November 4th, It was organised by EU Member States and supported jointly by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) and the EU s Joint Research Centre (JRC). During the exercise experts from over 70 public sector bodies were faced with nearly 320 IT security threats. The interim findings of the exercise show it fully met its objectives, however further improvements are needed such as closer public-private sector co-operation in combating cyber crimes. The full report about CYBER EUROPE 2010 is to be published at the beginning of Click here to find out more about CYBER EUROPE 2010 CEPIS Task Forces Need You! At the 45th Council meeting recently, the progress and development of the different Task Forces relating to the key strategic areas of CEPIS, were presented and discussed. Since the last Council meeting in spring 2010, it is

5 clear that most of the Task Forces have become mobilised, and are active in pursuing CEPIS objectives in their respective areas. However more participation from CEPIS Member Societies continues to be crucial in gaining success in each Task Force, and in gaining more support and visibility on a pan-european level. The following groups are seeking new members: - Green ICT - Professionalism Gerald Futschek from OCG also presented the latest progress on the proposed European Citizen's Initiative on Data Privacy - if any CEPIS Members would like to participate in this initiative please sign up. In addition, a new group, Software Quality, is open to members to start its work and the well-established Legal and Security Issues SIN is open to interested members. If you are interested in joining any of the above please contact Fiona Fanning. Call for Papers CEDEFOP Skills Demand and Supply Forecasting Conference The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) is organising a two-day international conference on skills demand and supply forecasting from 17th -18th February The conference aims to bring together an international forum of researchers and experts in the area of labour market supply and demands forecasting. In preparation for this conference, CEDEFOP has launched a call for papers. The topics for papers include: - Further Analysis for Forecast Results - Comparing Forecast Results - Comparing Forecast Methodology - Use of Forecast Results by Stakeholders

6 Any interested contributors are invited to send a maximum two-page abstract to the conference organisers before 10th December. Click here for more information Near Consensus on Importance of Open Internet A public consultation on open internet and net neutrality has recently been conducted by the European Commission. Its aim was to look more deeply into issues such as internet traffic management, transparency, quality of service considerations and the EU's new telecom rules. 318 stakeholders provided their input. The main findings of the survey show that the EU s revised telecoms framework adopted in 2009 supports the cause of net neutrality and that industry representatives are generally content with current market structures. However, some respondents are concerned about new internet business models that might cause net neutrality problems in the future and warn of possible discrimination problems undermining the competitiveness of the ICT sector. Click here to find out more about the survey and its main findings The Digital Competitiveness Report 2010 This report analyses recent developments in important policy areas of the European information society and provides a significant evidence base for the European Digital Agenda. It focuses on the use of internet services and ecommerce, the digital divide and einclusion, online public services, broadband access, the economic impact of ICT and the ICT sector. The report also benchmarks the relative performance of the EU Member States where possible, compared with other major non-european economies such as the US, Japan and Korea. It shows that in 2009 the European digital economy continued to grow and more people used online

7 services despite the economic crisis. Click here to see the full report 12th ATI Software Quality Group Conference The Software Quality Group of Asociación de Técnicos de Informática (ATI) organised the 12th edition of its Software Quality and Innovation national conference (XII JICS) in Madrid in cooperation with the Universidad de Alcalá last week from 25th - 26th November. This is the longest running conference on Software Quality in Spain and has been in existence since Members of industry, academia, R&D and public administration present new ideas and initiatives as well as debate the prospective trends and challenges which practitioners can face in their dayto-day working life. Guest speakers from other countries and a variety of contributors from Latin America are usually part of the program. The ATI Software Quality Group is also active in a publication that reports on important topics in the discipline of software quality in Spain which may be added to or benchmarked in the future with data from the rest of Europe thanks to the Software Quality Special Interest Network (SQ SIN) of CEPIS. The group also publishes the Spanish Journal of Software Innovation, Quality and Engineering - REICIS. Thank you to Luis Fernández-Sanz from ATI for this contribution. LIKS Computer Days 2011 The Lithuanian Computer Society (LIKS) is hosting their biannual event, Computer Days at the Klaipeda University from 23rd 24th September in The following events will take place throughout this twoday conference: - 15th International Computer Science Conference

8 - 10th Conference on Informatics in School Education - Workshop and Discussion on Information Society Development Issues - 12th Congress of the Lithuanian Computer Society - Workshop on ECDL implementation activities in Lithuania Click here for more information Thank you to Saulius Maskeliunas from LIKS for this contribution. IMCSIT 2010 Conference Report - PIPS The 2010 International Multiconference on Computer Science and Information Technology (IMCSIT) was held recently in Wisla, Poland. During the event many topics were discussed, including Secure Information Systems, Advances in Business ICT and Intelligent Mobile Technology for Social Change. Organised in collaboration with the Polish Information Processing Society (PIPS), IMCSIT 2010 attracted 213 papers, one of which won the conference s Best Paper award sponsored by PIPS. Many other awards and prizes were given to young scientists and to the winner of the Best Student Paper also. Click here to read the full conference report Thank you to Marcin Parzycki from PIPS for this contribution. 14 Million Pieces of European History, Art & Literature Available Online Europeana, is the digital library launched by the European Commission in 2008 which now has over 14 million pieces of cultural material available online. Anyone interested in European culture can find a myriad of resources online, and in one place, with this multimedia internet

9 portal. Over 1500 cultural organisations contributed content to Europeana, and the European Commission expects that this number will increase. Some of the contributions from various libraries across Europe include ICTresearch themed papers from Estonia and some interesting illustrations of CPU units from the Oxford Designers and Illustrators. Click here to access Europeana Upcoming Events... 1st 3rd December Online Educa Berlin Berlin, Germany. Supported by: European Commission DG Education and Culture 2nd 3rd December European Semantic Technology Conference Vienna, Austria. Organised by: STI International. Supported by: OCG 6th 7th December European Development Days 2010 Brussels, Belgium. Organised by: European Commission 13th 17th December Future Internet Week Ghent, Belgium. Supported by: European Commission 21st December Diskobolos Awards 2010 Belgrade, Serbia. Organised by: JISA 17th 18th February 2011 Expert Conference on Skills Demand and Supply Forecasting Thessaloniki, Greece. Organised by: CEDEFOP 23rd 24th September 2011

10 LIKS Computer Days Klaipeda, Lithuania. Organised by: LIKS Editorial Policy Contact Us