Maria da Graça Carvalho participated in the opening session of the 2nd edition of the PARADISO international conference "Internet and Societies: New Innovation Paths" that took place in the European Commission between 7 and 9 de Setembro de 2011 (see video here).
The speakers of the opening session were Maria da Graça Carvalho, Per Blixt, Head of the FIRE Unit, European Commission's DG Infso; Neelie Kroes, VP of the European Commission and European Digital Agenda Commissioner; Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences; Catherine Trautmann, Member of the European Parliament, Governor, European Internet Foundation; and Anna-Maria Darmanin, Vice-President of the European Economic and Social Committee.
In the capacity of rapporteur for the simplification of the EU research and innovation programmes and the EPP permanent rapporteur for the research area in the Budget Committee, Ms. Carvalho gave a brief overview about the future of the different EU research and innovation programmes.
During her intervention, Ms Carvalho remembered the importance of EU funding in research and innovation across Europe and declared that "this is a particularly crucial moment for us all as the Parliament, the Council and the Commission are in the process of preparing the successor to FP7: the Horizon 2020 programme and, at the same time, we have started negotiations on the future EU budget, post-2013".
The Paradiso Conference invited all organizations interested in the interactions between the Internet and societies to listen to the visions presented by leading experts from Europe and the rest of the world on challenges and opportunities ahead, and to make their voices heard, thus contributing to the definition of the future priorities of EU-funded research. In this conference, speakers from Europe and the rest of the world shared their visions of the future of our societies and of the Internet.
Paradiso is an initiative launched by Sigma Orionis and the Club of Rome (Italian chapter) in 2007. It aims at exploring how might or should our societies evolve in the next decades and at deriving recommendations on how could ICT in general, and the Future Internet in particular, contribute to making this future better. It is supported by the European Commission (DG Information Society and Media) through its FP7 research funding programme.