Trip report, IST2002 Copenhagen 04-06 November 2002 (fwd)

Thought this might be interesting for people on the list.

Libby

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 21:19:33 +0000 (GMT)
From: Libby Miller <Libby.Miller@bristol.ac.uk>
To: ilrt-staff@bristol.ac.uk
Cc: ilrt-mostly@bristol.ac.uk
Subject: Trip report, IST2002 Copenhagen 04-06 November 2002


I had a flying visit to Copenhagen to visit IST2002, which was
this years' IST conference[1], where IST is the European Commission's
Information Society Technologies Programme [2]. They fund a whole bunch
of stuff - our SWAD-Europe Semantic Web project [3], but also hard core
Internet Protocol and switching technology, e-commerce prototypes,
mobile technologies, electronics, nanotechnology and biotechnology, and
health. Oh, and robots [4].

SWAD-Europe was funded under Framework Programme 5; Framework programme
6 is launched 15-16th November, and we're looking to participate in one or
more projects funded under it. There are big changes this year though.

I attended sessions on FP6, eInclusion, robots, and mobile security
(which I thought was secure wireless technologies...but I was wrong).
There was also an exhibition of European technologies - I've got a
booklet describing the stands (for some reason called 'Conference
exhibition networking guide') which I'll put in the common room in a
folder tomorrow.

Those of you who care about accessibility, secure mobility or robots,
or EC funding over the next 2 years might find the rest of this
interesting - otherwise I'd skip it if I were you...although I did find
out that there is now a wireless network in Brussels airport [5] and I
took some photos [6].

Accessibility

eInclusion is about accessiblity - there's a horizontal strand in FP6
about inclusion of everyone who might be excluded for reasons of class,
gender, age, disability, race and so on. The previous action line
'particpation for all' in FP5 have resulted in a policy document about
avoiding information exclusion and also recommended the adoption of the
W3C's WAI guidelines via a memo and then resolutions. To come are the
publication of 'design for all' standards, a review of relevant
legislation in EC countries, and a network of centres of excellence.
The FP6 action plan includes eInclusion in all action lines, and talks
about supporting emergence of alternative access platforms. FP6 is all
about 'natural and enjoyable access to IST services for all, anywhere,
anytime' and therefore chimes nicely with accessibility aims.

eInclusion will mostly be in the FP6 second call in June 2003.

Judy Brewer of W3C talked about 2 W3C projects, WAI DA (Design for
all) and WAI TIES (technical implementation and education support) [7].
WAI DA has already begun, and is about building European
participation, training, WCAG (authoring guidelines) promotion, and a
'WAI gallery'.

WAI TIES is just beginning. It includes resources for web
evaluation, training, review teams, and standards harmonization.

There were some interesting discussions about the business case for
accessibility by Hartley Millar of Design for all in the DASDA project[8],
an FP5 accompanying action. The business case seems to be driven mostly
by legislation (as in the US). Their research suggests that marketing
people find it hard to scope the problem of accessibility, and they have
lack of time to spend on design for all; and if costs rise - even by a
small amount, they probably won't do it.
There was also a discussion about smart cards including information
about peoples preferences and limitations, that would enable them to
use e-services easily and appropriately.

Secure Mobility
I went to 'secure mobility' thinking it was something about 802.11, but
it was (in a way) much more interesting - about how to keep things (and
people) secure while in transit.

Calum Bunney talked about passenger travel rising very rapidly. The
airports can't keep up in terms of the physical structures, and so need
new processes. Innovations are being driven purely by economics - the
physical infrastructure can't deal with projected in increases in
numbers of air users. All the things below were in progress before
9/11.

The aim is to reduce transaction and inspection times, either by
identifying trusted passengers, or by identifying risky passengers.
There are some demonstration programmes running already, mostly with
business travellers, for example the Privium system, at Schipol,
which uses iris recognition and smart card integrated chip passports
(these are already used in Malaysia, and will be introduced soon in the
Netherlands).

Smart card passports bring up other possibilities, such as travel
documents, insurance, visa being included, and also passports as ID for
other ID applications, voting, drivers' licenses.

Biometrics
Optical memory cards are used in the US, which contain 2D barcodes for
the storage of fingerprint info (not always accurate).
Various biometrics are being used or considered, for example hand
geometry, finger print, iris, face.
Biometric applications are being used - e.g. UK asylum seekers,
and passport application issuing in Europe.

Problems
Biometrics documents are ineffective against basic ID theft - very
stealable. The cost of kit and training is high; it's not clear what to
standardize on; it's difficult to separate false and genuine negatives,
and it requires lots of uptake to be successful.
It's not clear what aspects of biometrics are most trustable.

Robots

There were lots of robots in the exhibition - many made out of Lego,
which I think is Danish. There was also a series of presentations under
the theme 'beyond robotics'. Dario Floreano has been building ant
robots, simple individuals which in groups can create complex societies
and build things. The aim is to create cooperative behaviours with no
overall coodination.

Chris Melhuish (of UWE[9] - I'm going to visit his lab on Wednesday) is
interested in intelligent, autonomous systems - 'doing the right thing
at the right time without human supervision'. He is interested in
robots that have their own power - for example solar power, but also
robots with artificial stomachs that can 'eat' bacteria.


FP6 [10]
Morten Moller of the EC led a panel on "Making an IST proposal" or as he
wanted to call it "how to milk a cow".
Essentially, FP6 differs form FP5 in that there are new 'instruments' -
ways of getting money off them - which devolve responsibility for
distributing money and auditing from the EC to the consortia bidding
for money. These are 'Integrated projects' and 'Networks of
excellence'. These will be longer, larger, more flexible than before.

Integrated projects
Integrated projects will be three to five or more years, and involve
more than 7 participants from 7 countries. Money will be paid as a
grant; cost statements will be annual; the distribution of money will
be up to the consortium, not the EC. Management will be arduous, and
will be funded at 100% for all participants for up to 7% of the total
funded. It's anticipated that the coordinating (main) partner will be a
company. It will also be necessary to have a consortium agreement in
place at the submission of the proposal. The proposal will cover only
the first 18 months in any detail: each year this can be updated with
the approval of the commission.
There will be no cost categories in FP6 - each company will be able to
use its own accounting system.

They seem to want proposals which involve industry driven research,
takeup trials and best practice, with less emphasis on basic or pure
research.

Networks of Excellence
Networks of Excellence are payments for joint, new long-term research
between established research programmes. A network will involve at least
3 participants and 3 countries, but many will probably be much larger,
up to several hundred researchers and  5 million euro a year. They will
be paid as grants, starting from 20,000 euro per researcher. Like integrated
projects there will be a detailed joint programme of activity for 18
months, revised each year, with the consortium distributing the grants.
The idea of a network of excellence is to bring together between 8 to 15
of the best teams in Europe, with 50 to 150 researchers funded per year
and where the EU funds a small proportion of the total effort; for
creating common deliverables, cowriting papers and creating common
research tools (e.g. software).

FP6 calls are over 2 years. The first will be December 17th with a
deadline of April; the second will open mid June 2003 and close mid Oct
2003. About 1/3 of the money will be used to fund 'traditional' funding
instruments.

There are some printouts of slides available - I'll put them in the
common room tomorrow in a file with all the other pamphlets and so on I
got and the participant list.

Libby


[1] http://2002.istevent.cec.eu.int/
[2] http://www.cordis.lu/ist/
[3] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/
[4] http://swordfish.rdfweb.org/photos/2002/11/06/Pages/Image28.html
[5] http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/27964.html
[6] http://swordfish.rdfweb.org/photos/2002/11/06/
[7] http://w3.org/WAI, http://w3.org/Resources
[8] http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka1/special_needs/home.html,
http://www.designforall.info
[9] http://www.ias.uwe.ac.uk/
[10] http://www.cordis.lu/ist/fp6/fp6.htm

Received on Tuesday, 12 November 2002 07:43:50 UTC