Causes FuturICT

Maria da Graça Carvalho hosted a meeting on FuturICT, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

During the meeting participated two Chairs of FuturICT, Prof. Steven Bishop, University College London (UCL); and Prof. Dirk Helbing, ETH Zürich. Prof. Steven Bishop made an introduction on FuturICT: Vision and Impact. Prof. Dirk Helbing spoke about the state of the art and new approaches in understanding and managing highly interdependent systems. Ioannis Tsoukalas, Member of the ITRE Committee of the European Parliament; Romana Jordan Cizelj, Member of the ITRE Committee of the European Parliament Wolfgang Boch, Head of Unit European Commission Information Society and Media Directorate General, Unit F1 - Future & Emerging Technologies (FET) - Proactive; and Prof. Panos Argyrakis, University of Thessaloniki, Greece; José-Luis Fernández-Villacañas Martín, EC; and Almut Bonhage, Consultant, Brussels; also participated in the meeting.

After the presentations followed a lively debate among the participants.

FuturICT is a large Coordination Action aiming to become Europe's leading research project on Future and Emerging Technologies. The goal of the FuturICT project is to understand and manage the complex, global, strongly interdependent techno-socio-economic systems of our world. It will build a simulation, visualization and participation platform, the Living Earth Platform, to support decision-making of policy-makers, business people and citizens.

The FET Flagship Initiative: In 2009, the European Commission (DG Infso, ICT Programme) launched an initiative in the field of Future and Emerging Technologies, the so-called FET Flagship Initiative. Europe's scientists were invited to identify challenges and propose projects with the strongest potential for realising scientific breakthroughs, and with the greatest impact on Europe's social and industrial challenges. In early 2011, the European Commission decided to fund six of 21 submitted proposals for further development. The six selected projects are now competing to become one of at least two FET Flagships which should be launched in 2013. One of the six contenders is FuturICT, jointly chaired by Steven Bishop from UCL London and Dirk Helbing from ETH Zurich.

In the image: Maria da Graça Carvalho with Prof. Steven Bishop and Prof. Dirk Helbing.