Competitive European technology at Net Futures 2015!

On 25-26 March 2015, in Brussels, the Net Futures 2015 conference was held, gathering more than 1000 people with the aim to maximise the competitiveness of the European technology industry. The event formed an interconnected community involving companies, organisations and people in

• Research & Innovation


• Market Validation & Living Lab Research


• Business Development, Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Strategy


• Policy Making.

Bridging the gaps between these communities was the general objective of the conference's organisers, certain that thanks to their connection, innovation will more easily and effectively find its way to the market.

«When we created this conference – Mario Campolargo, Director of Net Futures explaines - we wanted it to be a new open forum for a broad range of stakeholders. We hoped it would offer a unique opportunity to explore the results of cutting-edge European research, to network with the community, to engage with the experts in the field from Europe and beyond.

Above all, we wanted a debate on how to boost the competitiveness of the European technology industry, how to make it easier for innovators to launch companies, which new high-potential technologies need our full focus and how to stay on track in creating a fully digital economy.

I believe we have achieved all these aims and more. Discussions kick-started at the event are already creating exciting new collaborations. I also enjoyed awarding Italy's ENCO team the €25 000 prize for the FIWARE Challenge. Its InfoLog solution is a perfect example of how ground-breaking technology and good ideas can have real impact, in this case by cutting food waste and minimising CO2 emissions.

The conference's three themes [Research & Innovation (basic & applied research leading to innovative proof-of-concepts); Market Validation (large scale experiments and testing, either in a lab or real-life environment); Go-to-Market (new products and services with a proven value add are taken to market by either startups & SMEs or large corporations). Editor's note] spanned the entire innovation process from R&I, through market validation to commercialisation.

I encourage you to keep these debates and discussions alive and to keep in touch to help us develop strong frameworks for innovation, entrepreneurship and commercial success!»

Pictures and videos of the two day event are uploaded on the event website.