European-Cloud:-Vision-or-Fiction?

27.01 - 27.01.2015, NH Hotel du Grand Sablon, Brussels

Back in 2011, the former EU Vice President and Commissioner
for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, initiated the European
Cloud Strategy which was adopted in 2012. Then, nobody
was quite aware of the scope and intensity of activities by the
intelligence services. After the revelation of this scandal in 2013,
Neelie Kroes argued that Europe should focus more on building
its own digital infrastructure and single market in the internet.
That meant to deepen the effort of the existing strategy in order
to obtain an acceleration of existing policies. As nearly 85%
of cloud computing services are mostly US based it is a matter
of great concern how much the EU needs to build a European
single market for a trusted cloud computing environment.

These are not only the subjects of discussions at this conference
as the EU strategic aim of “Unleashing the Potential of Cloud
Computing in Europe” is greatly focussed on delivering a
«net gain of 2.5 million new European jobs, and an annual
boost of €160 billion to the European Union GDP (around
1%), by 2020». But is Europe on the right track? Where do
the opportunities for cloud initiatives in Europe lie? What are
national best practices and how can we leverage them for a
European cloud market? Are the services ready for the public
sector as it is starting to become fully digital? What are the best
standards to avoid silos and fragmented markets?

The European Cloud Conference will offer the unique
opportunity to discuss these and more questions.