ICT 2008 is a big conference and there are great many parallel sessions covering a veritable smorgisbord of technology areas. Taking a helicopter view of the proceedings gives a pretty good idea of the likely direction of travel for EU-funded ICT developments over the coming decade.
I’ve collated a list of all the work packages that were discussed and attempted a crude form of categorisation. Six major themes emerge, although these may not correspond to the EU’s categorisation:
- artificial intelligence: includes robotics and cognition, language processing
- green ICT: includes energy efficiency, smartgrids, climate change modelling
- next generation Internet: includes 3D Internet, new protocols and moving to services rather than devices
- strategic application areas: including learning, supporting creativity, digital libraries, health
- security, privacy and trust in the digital world
- novel computer architectures and electronics: includes nanotechnologies, bio-inspired computation, photonics and quantum computers.
The details of these areas, and their relevance and impact to HE/FE may well be the subject of future TSW reports over the next few years.