Turn Europe into the global leader in ICT innovation – this is the mission for the new Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) just selected in tough competition by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). The EIT is a new organisation recently launched by the EU targeting European competitiveness through better integration across the so called “knowledge triangle” of higher education, research and innovation. By highlighting the Future Information Society the EIT recognizes the fact that 80 % of new developments in the key economic sectors of Europe are based on ICT.
EIT ICT Labs aims at radical transformation of Europe into a knowledge society with an unprecedented proliferation of internet-based services and will establish a new partnership between business and academia based on trust, transparency and mobility of ideas and people. The consortium connects world leading companies, globally renowned research institutes and top-ranked universities all dedicated to speeding up innovation to address the grand challenges facing our society. Committed to an efficient open innovation model, EIT ICT Labs will generate faster transformation of ideas and ICT technologies into new products, services and businesses, boosting Europe’s future competitiveness in all sectors of society.
EIT ICT Labs builds on five co-location centres – Berlin, Eindhoven, Helsinki, Paris, and Stockholm – to create a world-class network of innovation hotspots. These main hotspots are complemented with our extensive network of local and international innovation partners. Professor Peter Apers, scientific director of CTIT (University of Twente) and director of 3TU.NIRICT, is coordinator of the EIT ICT Labs activities in the Netherlands. The Dutch core-partners are 3TU.NIRICT (all ICT research of the three technical universities in the Netherlands in Twente, Eindhoven and Delft), Philips (Eindhoven), TNO-ICT (Delft), Novay (Enschede), Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam), and the Embedded Systems Institute (ESI, Eindhoven).
Prof. Jan Karel Lenstra, director of the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands:
"ICT Labs is a strong European consortium of top research institutes and leading industry partners. It will play an important role in European research and in knowledge utilization. At CWI, we not only put in our expertise in the areas of agent systems, formal methods, databases and sensor networks, but our innovation activities like spin-offs as well".
Prof. Han La Poutré, coordinator ICT Labs at CWI:
"ICT Labs gives a great impulse to research and innovation in the Netherlands, via an ideal mix of frontier research and innovative entrepreneurship. CWI has major ambitions into this mix. ICT Labs is perfectly in line with the CWI mission: the discovery and development of new ideas, which are transferred to industry and other academic disciplines, and which contribute to the economy".
EIT ICT Labs inspires creative students, researchers, and business people to embrace a risk taking and entrepreneurial attitude and help them to identify new business opportunities. EIT ICT Labs catalyzes the creation of strong ventures and help them to grow to become the future world leaders in the ICT arena. EIT ICT Labs makes Europe the preferred place for ICT innovation attracts top talent, R&D units of large companies and investors from all over the world.
Becoming a KIC is a tremendous opportunity for us to make Europe the global leader in ICT innovation, says Magnus Madfors, acting CEO of EIT ICT Labs. We have the team, the experience, and we are ready to start building a world class innovation ecosystem, turning the potential of the Future Information Society into benefits for the citizens of Europe and the world.
More information:
Han La Poutré, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)
tel. 020 - 5924082
mobiel: 06 - 515 74 892
e-mail: Han.La.Poutre@cwi.nl
http://www.cwi.nl
See also:
http://www.ctit.utwente.nl/newsflash/pressrelease_ictlabs_uk.doc/
International contacts:
EIT ICT Labs general & Sweden
Prof. Gunnar Landgren, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden
Telephone: +46 8 790 42 22
Email: gl@kth.se
www.kth.se
The Netherlands
Drs. Iddo Bante, 3TU.NIRICT, University of Twente, the Netherlands
Telephone : +31 53 489 3998
Email: i.bante@utwente.nl
www.utwente.nl
Finland
Prof. Martti Mäntylä, HIT, Helsinki, Finland
Telephone: +358 9 451 8138
Email: martti.mantyla@hit.fi
www.hit.fi
France
Bruno Le Dantec, INRIA, Paris, France
Telephone: +33 6 12 36 12 56
Email: Bruno.Le_Dantec@inria.fr
www.inria.fr
Germany
Dr. Udo Bub, Deutsche Telecom Laboratories, Berlin, Germany
Telephone: +49 30 8353 58410
Email: udo.bub@telekom.de
www.telekom.de/laboratories
Source and illustration: CTIT
Quotes: Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)
