October 13-15, 2008 – Saint-Malo, France
A milestone in the NEM area!
The “2008 NEM Summit – Towards Future Media Internet”, successfully took place last week on October 13-15, 2008 in Saint-Malo’s Palais du Grand Large, France.
Organised by the NEM European Technology Platform under the aegis of the European Commission’s DG Information Society and Media with the support of the French Ministry of the Industry, the Région Bretagne, the Media & Networks cluster and the St Malo Agglomeration, the first edition of the NEM Summit “Towards Future Media Internet” represented a major conference and exhibition devoted to the field of networked and electronic media and ICT at large.
In its first year, the Summit featured over 50 exhibitors throughout Europe, including 18 European projects, 65 speakers and chairmen, and gathered over 400 delegates willing to benefit from a unique opportunity to network and share information and viewpoints on R&D status and perspectives in this area, identify future trends, discuss and identify opportunities for research collaboration (including under the ICT Theme of the FP7). The conference namely addressed topics related to:
- Electronic Media Content
- Distributed Media Applications
- New Media Delivery Networks and Network Services
- User Devices and Terminals
- NEM Enabling Technologies
The conference started with an “opening session” chaired by Jean-Dominique Meunier (Executive Director of NEM), during which Jean-Charles Hourcade (President of NEM), Henri-Jean Lebeau (Président of Saint-Malo Agglomération) and André Lespagnol (Vice-President of the Région Bretagne in charge of higher education, recherche & innovation), warmly welcomed all attendees. A video message from Viviane Reding (Commissioner for Information Society and Media, European Commission) rounded up the opening session.
Throughout the 3-day Summit, and in addition to the parallel technical sessions, the conference featured 4 keynote speeches:
- Joao Da Silva (Director of Directorate D “Converged Networks & Services” of the EC’s DG Information Society and Media), who shared the European Commission’s view through a paper entitled Media and the Internet at the Croassroads
- Matteo Maggiore (Controller EU and International Policy, BBC), who presented his view related to a paper entitled Content Providers and the Networks
- Kazumasa Enami (Director General of NICT), who introduced his paper entitled Research Activities on Ultra-Realistic Communications in Japan
- Luis Rodriguez-Rosello (Head of Unit Networked Audiovisual Systems of the EC’s DG Information Society and Media), who gave an insight to the audience about the upcoming FP7 Calls in the NEM area.
- Boris de Ruyter (Principal Scientist, User Experience Department, Philips Research Europe), who presented a paper entitled Developing Sustainable Lifestyles with Ambient Media
The technical sessions, as defined by the Technical Programme Committee following the Call for papers, were the following:
- Networks and Services
- Enabling Technologies
- Content
- Applications
To be noted: the conference also included a specific panel session on Future Media Internet and Strategies as well as a special session devoted to International Cooperation opportunities in the NEM field.
During the closing session, a Best Paper Award, offered by Saint-Malo Agglomération and granted by Eric Schutz, Chairman of the NEM Summit Technical Programme Committee, has been attributed to Pierre Tirily (researcher at the INRIA/IRISA), in recognition of the valuable quality of his paper entitled A Language Modeling Approach to Image Classification.
The conference proceedings for the 2008 NEM Summit can be accessed and downloaded here.
