Helsinki IST 2006 in Finland

PICTURE: Mr. Ferran Cabrer, Helsinki, Finland (2007)

I wrote, “We’ll meet again” in a group posting about the innovationtrain (innovaatiojuna) and in memorium of the social media platform Qaiku that is planned to stop its operation October 15, 2012. Those were the days...

The above picture was taken 2006 at the European IST event in Helsinki. There was a lot of talk about innovations, the role of ICT, strategic leadership, European collaboration, etc.

IST 2006 - Strategies for Leadership

Over 4,500 delegates ... almost 50 conference sessions ... 160 exhibits ... another 104 networking sessions and workshops, featuring thousands of online comments and suggestions ... over 2,700 votes for the best IST 2006 Exhibit and over 21,000 votes for the best IST project website ... the IST 2006 Event may have been one of the best ever held more

Six years later, I’ve been distancing myself from tech talk and innovative initiatives and focused on daily bread and butter activities.

Good for us and for our company. But I miss some of the people, don’t even remember their names. I was talking with Ferran Cabrer over Skype a few weeks before our departure to Spain, but we didn’t have time to travel to Barcelona this time.

We promised with Mrs. Irja Kallio to make a separate trip and spend a few weeks in Catalonia and Barcelona… and to talk about the present state of European innovations  and / or stagnation.

Kurt Linderoos about Innostars

"Last week I participated the IST 2006 conference, Helsinki, Finland." Writes Kurt Linderoos in his blog PERSONAL EU. More than 4000 innovation society professionals from all EU countries and the rest of the world, 3 days with parallell programs, 105 network sessions and workshops, 150 stands spread over 9000 square meters.

We were both there with Kurt representing the open source innovation tradition of Finland. Our initiative is to open up the innovation process and get into and over to cross-border innovation networking. Finland has a great innovation culture, but we are only one promille of the world population. The added value of our innovations can only be found in cross-border and cross-cultural projects.

What an unique chance to choose exactly right themes and minutes for meeting face-to-face the exactly right international team for making them interested in the "Personal EU" idea! Theory and truth are different: Too many interpassive school class presentations, too few opportunities to comments and short 1 slide point of views, too poor capacity to recognize the real key persons.

"I was lucky tp found some exceptional interesting - and interested - individuals and potential project partners." Writes Kurt and I agree. I counted that I had the opportunity to speak with people from all over the world representing over 30 nations, ranging from China to Colombia or from Barcelona to Espoo.

"The challenge now is to take practical interactive steps forward - connecting all essential new resources - not just with me but - with eachothers, to really work out something that is more than a sum of its components. " Blogs Kurt, and I agree.

This week (Nov 29th 2006) my friend Helge Keitel and I started an interactive Google Documents & Spread Sheet document "Innovation Society"/"InnoStar", fully editable by invited experts from different (mostly EU) countries. We started the document from scratch - and today just we 2 have joined it.

The Google Documents is the Writely web based word document platform aquired by Google this autumn. If you are one of those who should be invited, so please let me know - by email or comment to this blog. Successful cooperation! Kurre. www.personaleu.net.

PS. If there is below a "very strange" document, it can be a present but closed version of that "InnoStar". The work is in progress all the time.

• The document is open for collaborative actions
• We are practicing open source innovation methodology
• The work is in a continuous progress
• The first step is a learning experience
• How to cooperate over long distances
  

Infomation Society Program

On Thursday, 23 November, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen and Minister of Transport and Telecommunications Susanna Huovinen presented prizes for best information society practices at the closing ceremony of the IST Conference at the Helsinki Fair Centre. The awards are part of the Government Information Society Programme.

• The press release can be found here.
  

The total sum of awards was EUR 35,000. The best practice in each category received an award of EUR 10,000. There was also a special prize of EUR 5,000. This year, there were three competition categories: new innovations; effectiveness and productivity; and application and promotion of data security.

In the “new innovations” category, the prize was presented to Kulutuskapula ry for its Consumer Gadget. In the “effectiveness and productivity” category, the prize was presented to the National Board of Taxes for a pre-completed income tax return form.

In the “Application and promotion of data security” category, the prize was won by the Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT for an SME Risk Management toolkit. In addition, the jury decided to present a special award for AddictionLink web service of the A-Clinic Foundation. A commendation was also presented in each category.

IST Finland 2006

IST event will gather together all the key players of European information society technologies. The event concentrates on European policies, strategies, research activities and results in all areas of the Information Society. We welcome you to participate in the conference, exhibition and networking events.

The conference programme should appeal to decision-makers from the public sector, private industry and the world of research as well as to interested citizens. The Exhibition shows concrete results of research in and beyond Europe made possible by the IST Programme. Networking Sessions complement the conference and exhibition and contribute to one of the prime objectives of the European Commission in the area of R&D - to encourage forward thinking and collaborative initiatives for FP7.

At the IST 2006 you’ll also hear the latest news on the 7th Framework Programme. The event is organised by the European Commission in cooperation with Tekes, Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Finland.

The IST 2006 Helsinki was closing at 2 pm 23 Novembre 2006. My first reflections to what I'd seen and heard appeared as a podcast 24 Nov 2006 andd the digital picutres starte to appear in a context 24 November 2006. I think there is much more than the words and talks and pictures to this event. We've been able to open up a completely new world view. The open source collaboration is proceeding at multidicsiciplinary levels. The final facit of this congress will be written several months later. Just now, we are only touching the surface. There're so many talented individuals participating.

IST 2006 Helsinki

Affective Computing and Ambient Assisted Living was one of the central themes of the ACAAL workshop. Interesting work has been done in this field. I think there's a gap in the way things are done in the laboratory and how the general public is viewing the various living labs that are funded by the European Unit. Can intelligent machines have emotions?

IST EVENT 2006

Workshop on Affective Computing for Ambient Assisted Living

November 21-23, 2006, Helsinki

Nowadays, the researches on ambient intelligent are addressed to understand user’s physical and mental states, and to assist them proactively in performing activities, reaching goals and mastering everyday life. This characterizes a new mode of natural interaction between people and their environment: Ambient intelligence enables the environment to become aware of the human that interacts with, in terms of his goals, needs and even moods, then to proactively help the human to reach his goals.

• ability to recognize
• ability to understand
• even to process and express emotions
  

Scientific findings indicate that emotion is an essential element of our intelligence, and plays an significant role in decision making, perception, learning, and more --- that is, it influences the very mechanisms of rational thinking. Therefore, the ambient intelligence systems should also have the ability to recognize, to understand, even to possess and express emotions. “The question is not whether intelligent machines can have emotions, but whether machines can be intelligent without any emotions.” (M. Minsky)

• emotion is an essential element of our intelligence
• emotions play a significant role in decision making, perception and learning
• emotions are influencing the very mechanism of rational thinking
  

IST 2006 Event Helsinki

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT IST Event 2006

21 November 2006 - 23 November 2006 Helsinki, Finland. The IST conference is the main networking event and showcase covering research and development in information society technologies (IST). The event is organised by the European Commission in cooperation with the Finnish Presidency of the European Union, and will coincide with the launch of the EU's Seventh Framework R&D Programme.