Forum on Future Networking and Innovation in Nanjing, December 2012

TIVIT / China-Finland ICT Alliance, and Finland as the only country outside China, were invited as facilitators of international R&D&I cooperation in Future Networking and Digital Services Innovation to this kick-off event of the Industry Innovation Center for Future Network, China (IICFNC)  for research and development of Next Generation Networking (ipv6 Internet and beyond).

IICFNC is supported by the Nanjing municipal and Jiangsu Provincial governments and recognized by key Ministries and companies. It involves experts, including several Academicians and leaders of China Internet research such as Prof. Wu Jianping of CERNET / Tsinghua, a long term collaborator who was keynote speaker in June 2012 in the 3rd Future Internet Summit organized in Finland by TIVIT.

The work is at early stage and the directions are being discussed, like the role of “incremental” vs. “disruptive” approaches and how they can be co-developed.

In addition to network technology issues the invited talks and discussions dealt with the role of services and content in the (future) Internet and also the issues in business models, incentives, control points, as well as regulatory and  policy making issues. The participation included senior representatives of government, academia and industry (including Huawei and ZTE). These topics relate  rather well the current Finnish ICT & Digital services strategic research agendas.

Objectives for the Cooperation

• The objectives were defined in a MoU signed at the “Nanjing Forum” between Industry Innovation Center for Future Network, China (IICFNC) and The Finnish Strategic Center for Science, Technology and Innovation in ICT (TIVIT), as the Finland side Coordinator for The China-Finland ICT Alliance:
• to jointly advance bilateral and international R&D&I activities in future networking and digital services innovation … via research and in promoting open frameworks, architectures, enabling software technologies and platforms as a basis for future services in China, in Finland, and together in the global market.
• For creating solutions for the future society addressing the needs of industry, business, public sector and the citizens. The aim is to support the creation of knowledge-based economy, service-oriented government, and people-oriented, open, inclusive and sustainable development of the information society based on new information infrastructure. For this the development of information industry, information resources and education and training are needed.

Follow-up Actions:

• organizing meetings in January 2013 in Beijing to identify cooperation topics and modes for joint China – Finland/EU – US research:
• to plan participation and timing of expert workshops in Spring-Summer 2013
• to prepare for initiating business oriented R&D&I involving companies (network technology companies, operators and Internet companies) and to extend the use of interlinked testbeds in China and in Europe and in the US, Japan and Korea who are already active with China in test networks.
• to link education cooperation to research, e.g. Doctoral Exchange programs (like EU FP7 Marie Curie IRSES currently ongoing both in IS and in Networking areas) and arranging invitational resreach forums to discuss regulatory and policy making issues. Such approach has been included in the ICT Alliance cooperation during 2012- 2013 by jointly organizing two Sino-Europen Information Systems and Information Society Research Forums in Espoo and in Beijing.