The Future Network & Mobile Summit 2011 was kicked off in Warsaw on Wednesday 15. June with a plenary session chaired by Mr Luis Rodrigues-Rosello from the European Commission. Mr Rosello noted that this was the 20th anniversary of the Summit, marking the progress of ICT in Europe and globally. 
From Poland we heard that the upcoming Polish EU Presidency has set ICT as one of the priorities. We also heard about the coming Future Internet Week in Poznan, Poland, in late October this year (http://www.fi-poznan.eu/).
In his address to the plenary, Deputy Director General Zoran Stancic covered the main challenges and opportunities of European ICT development. He reminded us that past achievements, however numerous and well known, do not guarantee the future of ICT. For example, LTE is proving to be a great success, being the fastest developing and expanding communication technology ever. Still, we need to provide new success stories in ICT development and deployment to ensure positive development of the EU investments in ICT. The ICT industry needs to constantly re-invent itself to remain competitive in the global, fast paced ICT market. The commission aims to support this mission with a new common strategic framework, renewed funding instruments, and simpler rules and procedures. Dr Stancic especially mentioned cloud computing as an area that will affect all players in the ICT field, and urged the Eu to create a cloud computing strategy.
In the regular sessions on Wednesday, the various technical aspects of future networks were elaborated in detail. The program will continue until the closing plenary on Friday 17th afternoon, with the interesting title “Future Internet: Stairway to Heaven?”. The summit has again proved to be an event worth attending.
