Europe: Future Internet represents opportunity to improve competitiveness of European business, to create jobs and growth

For the policy maker, the Future Internet must represent an opportunity to improve the competitiveness of our European businesses, to create more innovation based growth and jobs, and to further contribute to the social well being of our citizen.

The Internet of today has already largely contributed to these policy goals. Over the last 15 years, it has enabled the creation of an entirely new economic sector. It has also deeply transformed our approach to social relations, to access to culture, education, or entertainment.

But more is to come. New challenges are ahead of us: an ageing population, environmental and energy concerns, the scarcity of raw materials, globalisation, and regional imbalances are typical examples. The OECD ministerial conference on "The future of the Internet economy" in Seoul last year has stressed the vital role that Internet and ICT technologies can play to tackle these issues

Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, speech on Internet of the Future: What policies to make it happen? to the Future of the Internet Conference, Prague, 11 May 2009
see also Future Internet Conference