The switch from ARTEMIS to Inside is more than a name change. With this transition, we reiterate our focus on connecting members to improve innovation in Europe and emphasise our commitment to the growth of Intelligent Digital Systems. But what does this look like in more concrete terms? Paolo Azzoni outlines his top three benefits of coming Inside.
Finding the right track
“The first,” Paolo begins, “is the possibility to become part of a community where all the most important players in our core business are present.” The business in question is embedded intelligence and, as the Head of European Technology Programmes at Eurotech, he deals with everything from cloud to pervasive computing to IoT – technologies for which unilateral development is virtually impossible. “Our systems are characterised by dependencies. But by being part of this network and collaborating with other stakeholders, you can control, monitor and develop state-of-the-art technologies. You can be sure that you are focusing on the right technologies and directions and also probably set up new businesses, which is the ultimate objective of the community.”
Without communities like Inside, it is difficult or even impossible to get to know a significant number of European projects and analyse their impact – something which Paolo recently set out to do through his chairmanship of Inside’s From IoT to SoS Working Group and the publication of a whitepaper of the same name. “That’s a big success story because at the end of the analysis, we clearly understood that the company was on the right track. Seeing that other companies and academic institutes have reached the same conclusion is extremely important in a market that evolves very quickly. We’ve been able to see if our plans, ideas and products are aligned with this market.”
1:100,000
As for his second benefit, Paolo notes that collaboration is also a means to take these trends in new directions, as Eurotech has done with the Everyware Software Framework (ESF) for the development of IoT and edge computing applications. “Ten years ago, when I started working on the first version of the ESF, it was just me and Arlen Nipper, the father of the MQTP protocol. We used the metaphor of two software guys in a deep valley in the desert, just to show that nobody understood us! Today, with the community, the ESF has become a reference point and we have a successful product. Many competitors have followed our approach, which is how we knew we were making the right choices. But this is only possible if you’re in a community with projects where you can discuss, cooperate, collaborate, confront each other and test your ideas.”
“Finally,” Paolo concludes, “we also have the link to the future KDT [Key Digital Technologies]. Practically speaking, this will be a tool to allow us to conceive and develop projects. Inside will have an important role in positioning, monitoring and controlling our interests regarding the KDT, which is the only way we can concretely realise our objectives. In the ECS community, the downstream part of the value chain is expected to grow a lot in the next ten years. If you have a growth of one in the semiconductor area, you will probably have a growth of 100,000 in the rest of the value chain more focused on software. This is not completely clear to our community yet but we should move according to revenue. It’s a challenge but it’s a fact we have to accept and something in which we should invest more time and effort in Inside.”