March 28, 2008

ESTIIC Conference, "Regional Policies on Technology-driven Innovation and Information Society Technologies for SMEs: Groundwork and Next Steps": 16 April, Brussels

How can European regions reasonably use the potential of key technologies like RFID and sensor networks, geotechnologies, flexible IT architectures and ICT convergence to take a leading place in the competition in international top positions?

The final conference of the Interreg 3C Regional Framework Operation (RFO) project ESTIIC (Fostering Regional Competiveness through Innovation & The Information Society) will provide information on current trends in the field of information and communication technologies and their impact to strengthen the competitiveness of European regions. After an introduction on the relevance of ICT for the development of European regions, experts of international reknown will present the most important ICT trends in an ICT portfolio of the future. eDisaster Management and eTraffic are two of the four application fields with a high economic potential to be presented afterwards. A concluding discussion with all experts shall develop innovative ideas for future regional ICT strategies. ESTIIC has been a joint venture between the Southern & Eastern Regional Assembly and 3 continental partner regions (Asturias, Cantabria, Nordrhein-Westfalen) to develop actions to foster regional competitiveness with small & medium enterprises (SMEs) particularly in mind. The operation involved two specific areas of focus, namely Technological Innovation and the Information Society, and aimed ultimately to improve the effectiveness of policies and instruments relating to these themes and their responsiveness to the needs of SMEs. The main element of ESTIIC was a mini funding programme from which 8 sub-projects based on inter-regional cooperation between public bodies were approved for co-financing. Support has been provided for activities to strengthen the expertise and capabilities of SMEs by bringing them closer to the most up-to-date range of scientific and technological know-how available and by allowing for the development of new instruments and opportunities to implement public policies on the following topics: implementing cross-sectional technologies; generating clusters and networks; aligning industrial requirements and research pursuits; intellectual property protection; the further extension of broadband and its future interaction with regional development; the business potentials of e-Health; and spatial information in business processes. Registration details can be found at: http://tomcats01.treelogic.com/estiic//04/servicio101.html

Posted by iroronan at March 28, 2008 03:10 PM