Brussels buzz words: the “FH tech spotlight”

Just like at national level, Brussels policy-makers and the wider stakeholder community regularly come up with “buzz words” – new jargon that outlines a crucial area that is grabbing the attention of the Brussels “bubble” at a specific point in time.

In the ICT space, we have over the last few years witnessed particular excitement around issues such as online content, eHealth, privacy, cloud computing, green ICT, and most recently the European Citizen’s Initiative.

In this time, in the FH Brussels technology team, we have looked at these areas, analysed EU policy and the regulatory environment around them, and identified threats and opportunities for business in Europe and beyond. Our thinking on these issues has been collated in a series of “FH tech spotlight” reports.

Click on the links below to read each one and let us know if you have suggestions for further reports! We are always looking for new ideas.

Teresa

• Is your organisation ready for the European Citizens’ Initiative?, FH Tech spotlight #7
• ICTs’ New Frontier – Cloud Computing, FH Tech spotlight #6
• eHealth – Transforming European Healthcare System,  FH Tech spotlight #5
• Green ICT for a low carbon economy, FH Tech spotlight #4
• Privacy in the Digital Age, FH Tech spotlight #3
• Content online, FH Tech spotlight #2
• Telecoms package, FH Tech spotlight #1

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Cloud Computing – ICT’s New Frontier

Cloud computing is one of the most exciting developments in the IT world. Broadly defined as internet-based on-demand computing, the benefits of cloud computing to businesses and governments are unprecedented. The market value of cloud computing in terms of cost savings, efficiency increase for customers and market gains for cloud service are already worth billions of euro and will only continue to grow.  It is therefore no surprise that the world’s largest ICT and technology companies are allocating significant resources in their cloud capabilities, investing in new and massive data centres, developing new forms of cloud services and establishing new business models.  However, despite the rapid growth of cloud computing, the market remains nascent and there are still numerous technical and regulatory challenges that need to be addressed in Europe before cloud computing can develop into a fully mature market.

Fleishman-Hillard has published a paper that offers a snapshot of the regulatory challenges that face both providers and users of cloud services in Europe and that business need to be aware of as they expand into this new frontier. Click here to read our latest tech spotlight on cloud computing.

Philip

Exploring technology & politics at the Personal Democracy Forum, Barcelona

The Personal Democracy Forum Europe is taking place in Barcelona on October 4^th and 5^th. We’re co-sponsoring the event so a few of us will be heading down to mingle with the best and the brightest minds in the “internet + politics” space.

Why are we involved? In short, the Internet is revolutionising the interaction between citizens, civil society, business and politicians. As the world’s largest conference on how technology is changing politics, the Personal Democracy Forum conference is the best place to meet, discuss and understand these changes. The programme is already jam packed and includes everything from Europe’s Digital Agenda to mapping the political influence of Twitter.

Who is going? Leaders in the political/digital field: campaigners, NGO’ers, journalists, bloggers, politicians, technologists and many more with first-hand experience of how democracy is being transformed online.  Not least Alec Ross, senior advisor to Hillary Clinton, Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, Marietje Schaake MEP, Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau, Prince of the Netherlands and Cabinet Member of Neelie Kroes, and Dominic Campbell, Founder of Future Gov.

But we are not just there to socialise and soak up the Spanish sun; no we are also going to be hosting a session on the European Citizens’ Initiative. Andrew Rasiej, one of the founders of Personal Democracy Forum, was talking last week in our podcast about the potential for the internet to help direct the usage of government resources. And already the Initiative has seen innovative use of online media to reach out across Europe and get support for legislative proposals. As such it is a perfect case in point from which to examine the true impact of our digital age.

If you can’t make it to Barcelona in person then don’t worry you can follow everything on the PdF Twitter feed (or indeed ours) or from the Personal Democracy Forum website.

Rosalyn

eHealth – A revolution for Europe’s health systems?

Image via Wikipedia

The topic of ehealth is attracting huge interest in Brussels amongst policymakers, stakeholders, think tanks…. Basically our Brussels’ bubble.

First of all – what is it? A good definition seems “the application of information and communications technologies in the health sector”.

Secondly, will it transform European healthcare system in the long term? In a two pager, posted on our FH website, we have tried to outline its benefits and the barriers that have still to be overcome if we want ehealth to flourish.

Enjoy!

Teresa

One victory against a poor German side and suddenly we are world beaters

Bathing in the afterglow of beating a particularly poor Germany with our reserve team at football last night, the FT’s UK section continues the gloating with the headline “Internet Savvy Britons lead digital league“.

Apparently the UK regulator Ofcom has unveiled its latest piece of research into the UK communications landscape. Thankfully, it contrasts the UK not only with our poor German cousins but also with Italy and France as well as Canada, the US and Japan amongst others. It also gives a good compendium of graphs and tables on a wide range of questions affecting the communications landscape from the penetration of mobile TV (Italy wins) to how likely we are to be part of a social media network (UK wins in Europe).

I am still rather shocked at that internet advertising spend is so low in comparision with other media in some countries (3%  of total in Italy, 4% in Germany and 5% in France). Given that the same survey suggests the French spend 13 hours a week online, I presume we are in a similar situation to this US graphic from 2007 in Europe in terms of ad spend versus time spend in each medium.

The rather weighty report includes some interesting graphs and stats for anyone trying to prove the relative importance of the internet in the greater scheme of things from Ofcom original fieldwork as well as recent work by others such as Neilsen. Worth a look.

James