Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HUB4NGI (A Collaborative Platform to Unlock the Value of Next Generation Internet Experimentation)
Berichtszeitraum: 2018-07-01 bis 2018-12-31
The Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, launched by the European Commission in the autumn of 2016, aims to shape the future internet as an interoperable platform ecosystem that embodies the values that Europe holds dear: openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data. The NGI will drive this technological revolution and ensure the progressive adoption of advanced concepts and methodologies spanning the domains of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, interactive technologies and more, while contributing to making the future internet more human-centric. This ambitious vision requires the involvement of the best Internet researchers and innovators to address technological opportunities arising from cross-links and advances in research fields ranging from network infrastructures to platforms, and application domains to social innovation.
HUB4NGI has been the first Coordination and Support Action assisting the EC in the launch of the NGI initiative with the overall goal of creating a collaborative framework capable of effectively supporting and coordinating activities across the whole NGI context by combining knowledge, tools and processes to reach and engage top-notch Internet researchers and innovators.The selected and carefully designed activities HUB4NGI has pursued have been organised around 5 main work packages: the NGI APPROACH, the NGI GUIDE, the NGI CATALYST, the NGI BOOST and the NGI FIGHTER. By close interaction of these activities, HUB4NGI has covered strategy and operation by:
Defining a methodology for collecting and assessing the information in the NGI domain.
Grounding the NGI vision, strategy and plans.
Accelerating the NGI programme implementation.
Running community building, outreach and communication activities.
HUB4NGI has played a crucial role for the whole NGI community helping also to grow and liaise with relevant European, international, national and regional initiatives via support to the Future Internet Forum and close interaction with other Horizon 2020 programmes such as CAPS, 5G PPP, IoT-LSP, FIRE, etc.
All outcomes and outputs have been made available via the NGI Portal at: www.ngi.eu
The main results that have been achieved during the first 18 months of the projects can be summarised as follows:
While for a Coordination and Support Action it is not easy to talk about progress "beyond the state of the art", the HUB4NGI partners succesfully contributed (both at a strategic and operational level) to gather a dynamic and growing community of European researchers and innovators around the NGI initiative, despite no other research and innovation projects were running in parallel, a part from Fed4FIRE+. In this respect, looking at the outcomes and performance we obtained in the first 18 months of activity, it is clear HUB4NGI has really marked a major step forward.
The capability to engage the top notch players working to build a better Internet is indeed a major challenge also because it requires bringing together groups and initiatives coming from different research and innovation fields - dealing with challenges at a technical/technological level on the one hand to a socio-economic one on the other.
The way we live, act and interact is so much impacted by the internet that for HUB4NGI to take the lead in promoting the creation of the boundary conditionsfor a more accessible, secure and reliable internet has the potential to drive the digital transformation for the good of the whole society. The whole HUB4NGI consortium has been fully committed to this ambition.