Forum'99 Information Technology and the Benefit to the Society

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Hitachi Science and Technology Forum Europe
2nd Regional Meeting in Krefeld
(October 9 - 10th 1999)

• Introduction
• Opening Speech
• Keynote Speech
• Key Action 1
• Key Action 2
• Key Action 3
• Key Action 4
• Guest Speech
• Hitachi's Presentation
• Feed back Session
  • Speech by Mr. Pierre Longin
    Wrap-up by Dr. Ralf Raue

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Introduction Mr. Norikiyo Koide General Manager, Hitachi Corporate Office, Europe

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my privilege to open this Hitachi Science & Technology Forum which gathers Speakers, Mr. Verrue and his colleagues from the European Commission as well as Mr. Quint from INRIA, who have kindly accepted to share their knowledge and experience with us, Senior Hitachi executives, which participation underlines the significance of this forum in the Hitachi long-term thinking.

And you who, in a more or less recent past, have been guests of our plants and research centers in Japan.

To all of you, my deepest gratitude and sincere appreciation.

You have all been part of the Hitachi HIVIPS programme. This is a well-established programme targeted at students around the world in their finishing year of university studies. Let me stress, to our guest speakers, that all HIVIPS have demonstrated a genuine interest in Hitachi R&D, and in the way of life in Japan, as well its real culture.

You represent an ideal link between the European and the Japanese cultures, you bring a great variety of experiences through your current business involvement. We want, together with you, to capitalize on these assets.

Hitachi has been committed to contribute to Society through its technological developments . Hitachi wants to be a player in the shaping of the society we live in, we will be living tomorrow.

One of the key-goals of the Brussels Hitachi Corporate Office is to contribute to the implementation of this commitment to Society in Europe.

You can help us a lot.

We asked Dr. Raue to be the moderator for the last part of the meeting during which we should plan the forum's future activities.

Let me give some indications about our current thoughts so that you might, in turn, address them.

I need to underline that your participation in the Hitachi Science & Technology Forum must not, in any way, create any conflict of interest with the activities you are carrying in your company and research institutes.

Please be assured this will never the case.

Technology and Society, this is one of the most widespread debate and topics in today's European Society.

How can European Society support technological developments which, ultimately, will bring major benefits to the European citizens?

This is the challenge we want to address.

Our chances to come up with the right answers will be greatly enhanced through your active participation and support.

Let this challenge become a challenge for the members of this forum.

Please do not hesitate to convey your views to Dr. Raue. They will help to launch the debate on Sunday morning.

Now back to the agenda.

I am very pleased to introduce Mr. Kuwata, Executive Vice-President and Director. His presence is an illustration of the interest generated by your forum to our senior management.

I wish to thank Mr. Kuwata to have extended his stay in Europe to be with us today in spite of a very heavy schedule.

Now I would like to hand over to Mr. Kuwata.

Thank you.

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Opening Speech Mr. Yoshiro Kuwata Executive Vice President and Director, Hitachi, Ltd.

Introduction
First of all I would like to thank you all for taking part in this German meeting of the Hitachi Europe Science and Technology Forum.

I have been overseeing Hitachi's international business for a long time, and have been receiving reports on this forum since the planning stages.

It now gives me great pleasure to participate in this forum, as well as to meet so many friends of Hitachi.

Although the theme of this meeting is "Information Technology and its benefit to society", what I would like to talk about are Hitachi's IT-related international business activities and future direction.

The spirit of this forum has always been to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds to discuss the role of science and technology in developing society and humankind, so I hope you will listen to someone less technically qualified like myself.

Japan-EU Business Dialogue Round Table
For the two days up until yesterday, I was attending the Japan-EU Business Dialogue Round Table meeting in Brussels, which is supported by the Japan-EU summit leaders.

At that meeting, 12 European business leaders and 12 of their Japanese counterparts studied and discussed a number of matters, such as the economic situation not only in Europe and Japan but also in the Asian region and the whole world, regarding trading, investment, deregulation, taxation, e-commerce and the WTO.

I think that kind of wide-ranging discussion came about because the business world is becoming borderless and competition is becoming tougher, and all factors have an effect on our activities.

MRA
At that meeting, I led the Japanese side in the discussion on the Mutual Recognition Agreement, the so called MRA.
Simply speaking, the purpose of this MRA is for us to recognize and accept the standards of each other's countries.
Take the example of Hitachi trying to export its mobile phones to Europe.
If Hitachi obtains manufacturing certification in Japan, it will be able to export to Germany, Holland and France without requiring certification in those countries.
As technology and products become more and more complicated, this MRA is an attempt to increase mutual trust, simplify procedures and satisfy consumers.
In that sense, I believe it is a development that is beneficial to society.

International Standardization
However, this MRA is not the final solution to the problem of simplification. What we are aiming for are things such as the removal of certification procedures, and the harmonization of standards on an international level.

This is what I was discussing just before coming here. I believe such a movement towards international standardization is extremely important.

And this kind of awareness exists not only in Hitachi but also in most companies and research institutes of the world.

Card Business
The card business is one example. Hitachi has a unique position in the card business, in the sense that we can supply a very wide range of products, from the microprocessors that are at the heart of the cards, to back-end systems including software development and encryption technology.

Of course we are active within Japan in this field, but we are also working together with our partners in Europe towards standardization around MULTOS, multi-application operating systems, and smartcards, plastic cards embedded with a microprocessor chip.

Hitachi is also a founding member of MAOSCO (the Multi-Application Operating System Consortium) in Europe, and is trying hard to develop new applications for smartcards together with the other members.

Hitachi's R&D Activities in Europe
Forming the base of our research activities in Europe are the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory and the Hitachi Dublin Laboratory along with our other labs.

I understand there will be an explanation of the activities at these laboratories tomorrow morning by Dr. Asai.

In addition, we are now able to carry out joint research with several other companies and institutes, such as GMD in Germany, and INRIA in France.

Through such cooperative relationships, I believe that Hitachi is contributing to society by developing new IT technology in Europe.

de facto Standards and de jure Standards
Hitachi is carrying out R&D activities both in Europe and America, and I feel the approach is slightly different between the two.

In the US, the de facto standard approach is the strongest, where the technology of one powerful company occupies the market.

In Europe, on the other hand, it seems that the de jure standard approach is more widespread, in which a number of companies and institutes try to create the maximum effect by combining the strong points of several different kinds of technology.

De jure standards overcome the differences of culture, language and customs, and I believe they have provided the setting for the start of European market unification.

I am not saying simply that either de facto or de jure approach is better than the other, but I do think that de jure standardization is effective in this complicated global society.

And it must be said that the technology and standards which succeed in Europe tend to become highly competitive worldwide too.

Information Technology
Europe ranks alongside the US as a particularly advanced region in software and systems development in the information and communications fields.

This is because the various countries in Europe have had to bring about improvements in the fields of communications, software and information processing in order to deal with EU unification and the introduction of the Euro, the common currency.

We can feel Europe's dynamism in these fields.

And looking at the powerful influence of European technology and standards, I do not think that Europe is simply a region which exports goods or produces them on site and sells them.

Rather, it is a region which actively participates in research and development, a region where we can take not only a European approach but also a global one.

ESPRIT and 5th Framework
One long-term result of Hitachi's activities is that we have begun to participate in the ESPRIT program, European Strategic Program for Research in Information Technology, well-known in Europe in the information technology field.

And we have made a number of proposals in the IT field towards the 5th Framework, which is being promoted by the European Commission at present.

I am convinced of the tremendous value of the concept of taking part in this kind of European R&D project and carrying out joint research with powerful European companies and organizations and promoting our mutual applications.

Hitachi's European Business and IT
Hitachi has developed its business across a wide range of fields from heavy electric machinery to information and home appliances, but we believe IT is crucial in all business fields, which is why we have expanded our IT business and feel we should continue to do so.

In this sense, the experience we have accumulated at the very center of the IT field is extremely valuable. And we hope that all the efforts we have made in Europe will somehow benefit us at some point.

Expanding EU and IT Business
The EU currently accounts for around 30% of the world's GDP, but as the neighboring Central and Eastern Europe economies continue to expand and obtain EU membership, Europe is bound to become an even more important region and market.

Meanwhile, I believe there will be more and more attention in the IT field.
In his opening address at last month's European Council, the new EU Commissioner Mr. Prodi stated that Europe has the potential strength to develop its information technology, and described the creation of new policies to develop IT and production.

Hitachi, Europe's Partner
I believe that Europe, with the increasing influence of its developed countries' IT fields and its expanding markets, poses a considerable challenge for Hitachi and for Japan, but at the same time can be a good partner for us too.

It is my hope that this partnership can become the foundation for world leadership which will create mutual and global prosperity.

Thank you.

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Keynote Speech Mr. Robert Verrue Director General, European Commission - Directorate General XIII

"Towards the Information Society in Europe - The European Union's Contribution"

1. Introduction

• It's been over a decade now since the EU launched ambitious R&D programmes to promote the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), services and applications in Europe. The rationale behind this was our belief that ICTs were going to play an increasingly important role in our societies, especially as regards quality of life, industrial competitiveness and the creation of new jobs.
• But supporting R&D efforts alone was not enough to bring the benefits of these technologies to European citizens and businesses. This was complemented by the launch, in 1987, of an ambitious telecoms liberalisation policy, aimed at unleashing the private sector's innovation and investment power in this sector.
• The appropriateness and timeliness of this approach has been confirmed in recent years. Let me illustrate this by a few essential facts and trends:

THE INTERNET

1. The development of ICTs has given birth to the Internet which, in the past five years, has shown itself to be a powerful and open medium for communication and business. The number of Internet users globally is now around 150 million and will reach 200 million by the end of the year 2000. About one third of these will be in Europe;
2. In five years time, the Internet will be used routinely by half of the European population. This does not necessarily mean that there will be a computer in half the homes in Europe, but access will become commonplace as other devices are used to connect to the Internet. Already access is possible through digital TV set-top boxes, digital assistants and mobile phones. Increasingly this will extend to virtually all consumer appliances using electronic components such as micro-wave ovens, refrigerators, alarm systems, road navigation systems, etc.

THE NETWORKED ECONOMY

1. Today, ICTs and the Internet have become the most significant factors shaping our economies. This will remain the case for the foreseeable future, as the world moves towards the networked economy.
2. The information society is already the fastest-growing sector of the economy. It accounts for 5% of the EU GDP and 15% of economic growth.
3. The Internet is also the driving force for the rapid emergence of electronic-commerce, which is expected to be worth 200 billion euro in 2000 and up to 850 billion euro by 2005 world-wide.
4. It is therefore vital to our future competitiveness and growth that Europe masters this new context.
5. Furthermore, the take-up of the Internet and ICTs is also vital to solving Europe's employment problem: over 4 million people in the EU already work in information society sectors. The information society now creates 1 out of 4 new jobs and demand largely outpaces supply. At a time where high levels of unemployment remain a major challenge for Europe, this expanding area represents a potential for employment creation that cannot be ignored.
6. Before going to the details of our new Information Society Technology (IST) Programme -which will in fact be mainly a task for my colleagues - I wish to present you an overview of our information society policy, in which ICT research is fully integrated.

2.Guiding Principles of the EU Approach

• The information society concept is about the optimal use of ICTs in all human activities. As I have already pointed out, our policy aim is to improve Europe's performance in the global economy, as well as to increase the efficiency of public services, leading to greater economic growth, the creation of new jobs and improvement in the quality of life.
• To achieve this, the EU's approach is based on a series of guiding principles:

1. The information society must be market-driven: only the private sector has the required investment and innovation capacity to turn it into a reality.
2. Public authorities must accompany this process of change to help citizens and businesses reap the full benefits of the information age.
3. From the European Commission's standpoint that means focusing on two essential tasks at EU level:
   - creating a favourable legislative environment for businesses and citizens and
   -supporting research, development and innovation in ICTs.
4. To ensure that its action meets the needs of businesses and citizens, the Commission has established a continued dialogue with all involved parties, including industry, users and consumers. This is mainly realised through the publishing of Green Papers, which provide an opportunity for all interested parties to give input to the Commission before the launching of a new policy or regulatory initiative.

3. Creating a Favourable Legal Environment at European Union Level
THE NETWORKED ECONOMY

• The entry into force, on 1 January 1998, of an EU-wide liberalised regulatory framework for telecoms set the essential framework conditions for the expansion of the communications sector:

1. Much of the new framework is about introducing mechanisms to foster competition in a market characterised by strong incumbent positions.
2. his liberalisation process, which took place over a decade, was both gradual and transparent, thus allowing market players to anticipate upcoming developments. Its impact is already far-reaching.

• Today, the EU telecoms market is a dynamic and rapidly evolving market worth 148 billion euro. It is regarded as the single most important contributor to economic growth in the EU:

1. The mobile communications market alone is growing annually at a rate of 21% while fixed-network services are expanding by 14% per annum. Furthermore, Europe is the undisputed technical and market leader in this sector thanks to the success of the pan-European GSM standard, which has become a global standard used by 330 operators and 170 million subscribers in over 130 countries;
2. In addition, prices have started to fall significantly, particularly in the long-distance and international markets, while services are increasingly diversified and their quality is improving steadily.

• In parallel, the telecoms industry is undergoing a major restructuring process:

1. Incumbent operators have extended their business beyond their traditional markets and activities into networking and the Internet;
2. The number of network operators has grown to over 500 and there are over 1,000 service providers;
3. Massive investments are being made in the upgrading of infrastructures and the development of several pan-European high-speed network projects;
4. Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures are multiplying and chanf-ging the face of the industry. They often include overseas partners and reach beyond the traditional boundaries of the telecoms sector;
5. The latter reflects the growing convergence between the different segments of the information society industry, particularly between: telecoms and cable operators; network operators and broadcasters; telecoms equipment manufacturers and networking groups.

THE 1999 TELECOMS REVIEW:

• Overall the EU policy framework is functioning well. However, improvements are necessary. These are the object of a review of the telecoms framework which will be carried out before the end of 1999. The key aims of the Telecoms Review are to:

1. Enhance, clarify and simplify the regulatory framework - currently composed of 25 separate legal measures;
2. Strengthen competition in order further reduce tariffs, in particular for local communications, where prices remain relatively high. From a regulatory standpoint, effective competition very much depends on the unbundling of the local loop.
3. Examine how the EU framework should be adapted in the light of market and technology developments, in particular convergence. A key issue in this respect is related to the co-existence of different regulatory frameworks for different infrastructures. It is clear that the regulation of networks according to the content carried is no longer appropriate.

E-COMMERCE:

• At the same time as the new telecommunications framework was being implemented in the 15 Member States, the Commission was also undertaking to consolidate the Internal Market for e-commerce, a task which is to be completed in the year 2000.
• All the required directives have now been tabled and some have already entered into force, for instance those regarding the legal protection of databases and the protection of personal data. Other key directives concern:

1. copyrights and authors rights in the information society;
2. the creation of an harmonised EU-wide framework for electronic signatures and electronic certification services;
3. a horizontal directive which aims to remove the remaining obstacles to the free movement of electronic services, in particular regarding the establishment of service providers, the provision of commercial communications, the treatment of electronic contracts and the liability of intermediaries.

4. Creating a Sound Global Framework for the Internet and Electoronic Commerce

• Policy initiatives must reflect the global nature of the Internet and e-commerce. This also calls for globally-agreed rules and principles. However this ideal is difficult to achieve for several reasons, primarily:

1. Achieving progress at global level is a complex and time-consuming process.
2. Convergence sometimes makes it difficult to draw a clear borderline between the respective responsibilities of the international bodies involved - e.g. WTO, WIPO, UNCITRAL and the OECD. This entails an increased risk of overlaps, duplications and inconsistencies.

• A new approach at international level was needed to overcome these difficulties. The Commission's contribution to this new approach was an initiative launched in February 1998

1. Its aim was to encourage clarification of the global rules for e-commerce through strengthened international co-operation and a stronger involvement of the global business community.
2. In response to the Commission's initiative, the global business community launched, in January 1999, the Global Business Dialogue on electronic commerce (GBDe).

• The GBDe's main aim is to develop business consensus on appropriate solutions to those priorities issues where swift global action is needed, i.e.: authentication and security; consumer confidence; content; information infrastructure and market access; intellectual property rights; jurisdiction; liability; protection of personal data; taxes and tariffs.
• On this basis, recommendations to governments, parliaments and international organisations were tabled by the GBDe at its first conference held in Paris in September 1999: - public authorities have been requested to reply to these recommendations within 6 months; - working groups will be established to develop new policy initiatives as well as monitor and report, by April 2000, on the implementation of the recommendations; - a second GBDe conference will be held in the year 2000.

5. New Orientations for 1st Reasearch

• While the 4th Framework Programme for R&D had been extremely successful, it has also shown some shortcomings in the face of the digital revolution. The new Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme had to reflect the political, technological and industrial changes that have taken place since its launch, back in 1994.
• Our aim in developing the 5th Framework Programme was to keep better pace with the changing technological context and take better account of Europe's socio-economic needs. The overall aim of the programme is to foster collaborative R&D which will make a key contributor to the maintenance of Europe's position as a leading technological and economic player in the 21st century.

REFLECT CONVERGENCE

• As the frontier between the telecoms, IT and media sectors fades away, the maintenance of three programmes focusing on different technologies and sectors was no longer tenable.
• Convergence is thus one of the main driving forces behind the integration of all EU IST-related R&D activities into the single IST Programme. MORE RESPONSIVE TO CHANGE
• The pace of technological change has increased tremendously over the last years. While the life span of an EU programme is "only" five years, this is already too long to foresee at the outset new challenges that may arise almost overnight.
• In order to respond to these challenges in a timely manner, the IST Programme will operate on the basis of a rolling work plan, updated annually. Furthermore there will be frequent calls for proposals - two or three each year. New actions can therefore be easily and quickly launched as and when required, while existing actions can be more easily reoriented to reflect new developments.

QUICKER TO THE MARKET

• At the end of the day, R&D activities should lead to new products and services, supporting innovative means of manufacturing and trading. This will contribute to strengthen all sectors of EU industry in the global economy, in particular SMEs, both as regards market shares, competitiveness and the amount of jobs created.
• The IST Programme will therefore place strong emphasis on the take-up of EU R&D results. This includes, in particular, actions supporting the development and diffusion of the skills required to facilitate take-up (such as first-user and best-practice actions), as well as actions aimed at amplifying the dissemination and exploitation of research results.
• This will be accompanied by consensus-building and standardisation activities, which have proved extremely successful in the past, for instance for GSM and digital TV.
• The IST Programme must also reflect economic globalisation. Hence the importance devoted to the international dimension of EU research, which will be more open to third countries, especially our neighbours from Eastern and Central Europe.

BETTER SERVE EU POLICY GOALS

• Finally - and this is in fact an underlying element of the previous points I have just made - EU research must be more closely related to EU policy goals, in order to better serve them. To achieve this is even more important today than it was in the past, given the fast and widespread penetration of ICTs in all aspects of human life.
• In practical terms, it means that the research objectives of the IST Programme reflect the political priorities of both Information Society policy and other key EU policies, for instance employment, education and training, health, transport, cohesion or sustainable development.
• This also requires that the IST Programme works in close interaction with other thematic programmes of the Framework Programme, especially regarding actions where the contribution of ISTs is particularly relevant. This will be realised through concertation and joint calls, for instance as regards the deployment of ICTs in manufacturing, healthcare or transport.

OVERVIEW THE IST PROGRAMME

• The new IST Programme has a budget of 3.6 billion euro until 2002, and around 800 million euro for 1999. It is focused on four key actions and two horizontal activities:

1. Key Action 1 - "Systems and services for the citizen"
2. Key Action 2 - "New methods of work and electronic commerce"
3. Key Action 3 - "Multimedia content and tools"
4. Key Action 4 - "Essential technologies and infrastructures"
5. Horizontal Action 1 - "Future and emerging technologies"
6. Horizontal Action 2 - "Research networking"

CO-OPERATION WITH JAPAN IN THE IST PROGRAMME

• All of you have spent time working in Japan and will be aware of the high quality of R&D undertaken there and the potential for mutual learning between our technologists. A number of initiatives have been undertaken by the European Union in recent years to stimulate R&D collaboration with Japan.
• For example, the G7 pilot project "A Global Marketplace for SMES" started in February 1995 with the collaboration of MITI and MPT. A series of workshops were organised within this framework and contributed to the drawing up of the European Commission Communication on electronic commerce.
• The fifth framework programme opens new opportunities for international co-operation, as its rules for participation are now more flexible. However there are still a number of requirements that must be respected:

1. The participation is on a project by project basis.
2. It should be in conformity with the interests of the Community
3. It should be of substantial added value for implementing Science Policy
4. The minimum number of legal entities from the Community and Associated States must be respected
5. No Community funding should be granted
6. Horizontal Action 2 - "Research networking"

• We are convinced that there are a number of Information Society Technologies that are extremely relevant for the R&D collaboration between EU and Japan. However, we also have to accept that the Japanese and European systems of research are very different and that despite globalisation there are still strong cultural differences.
• It is therefore the role of financing agencies like ours to facilitate this dialogue through the support of collaborative projects but also through the establishment of an open regulatory environment.
• The approach that we are supporting in co-operation with MITI is the following :
  

1. Encourage the organisation of technology theme-based workshop. This first stage is useful in itself as it allows a better evaluation of the potential for collaboration at low cost.
2. Try to set up pragmatic co-operation mechanisms through joint projects. This aspect raises a number of difficult issues such as intellectual property rights and project selection procedures. Discussion is on going with MITI to solve these difficulties.

• As a first step to support this strategy, it was agreed with MITI to organise three workshops on electronic commerce technologies: EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), smart cards and virtual reality. Already two of them took place, smart cards and virtual reality. We expect both of these to generate several collaborative proposals that will be submitted to the second call of the IST programme which closes in the beginning of January 2000.
• The success of the first technology workshops has led to new initiative

1. A seminar, organised jointly with MPT, in Tokyo on the 26th and 27th of October 1999 on "The effect of portable telephones on the citizens health". The workshop is intended to clarify policy options and orientations in the light of the latest and best scientific research, and to catalyse stronger research co-operation between the EU, Japan and Korea in this important area of common concern.
2. A major EU-JAPAN conference/exhibition on Information Technologies will take in the Gifu region between the 3rd and the 5th October 2000. It will be the first IT trade conference between Japanese and EU-based IT companies, organised by Gifu Prefecture Government of Japan and European Commission Information Society DG. The objective of the meeting is to create strategic alliances between European and Japanese companies through bilateral meetings.

6. Conclusion

• In conclusion, the development and effective uptake of ISTs will be one of the key issues for the European economy in the coming years.
• The European Commission, through an extensive and integrated policy, aims to foster the emergence of the Information Society in Europe, in order to ensure that we reap the full potential benefits.
• In addition to telecoms deregulation and the development of an appropriate regulatory framework in related areas, particularly e-commerce, one of the lynchpins of the Commission's strategy in this area is the IST programme.
• Through fostering the establishment of collaborative R&D projects, the IST programme helps to bring together Europe's brightest researchers to develop new technologies for the next generation of IST devices.
• At the same time research in ICTs is global, so it is important that the IST programme is as open as possible to collaboration with non-EU partners, including Japan. We are making progress in this area, although further efforts are required to stimulate cooperation.
• My colleagues will now describe the technical aspects of the programme to you in more detail.

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Key Action 1: Systems and services for the citizen Mr. David Callahan Directorate-General Information Society(Directorate B) European Commission

To meet the needs and expectations of European citizens for high quality and affordable services of general interest. RTD will be carried out in the fields of health, persons with special needs (including the elderly and disabled), administrations, environment and transport.

Key Action 2: New methods of work and electronic commerce Dr. Rosalie Zobel Directorate-General Information Society(Directorate C) European Commission

To enable both individuals and organizations to innovate and be more effective and efficient in their work and businesses, thus increasing their competitiveness while improving the quality of the individual's working life and consumer confidence. RTD will support the identification of new organizational paradigms made possible through the convergence of information and communications technology, provide technologies to enhance trust and confidence, and develop tools required by individuals and groups to operate in new organizational environments.

Key Action 3: Multimedia content and tools Mr. Bernard Smith Directorate-General Information Society(Directorate E) European Commission

To confirm Europe as a leading force in this field and enable it to realize the potential of its creativity and culture. It will address issues such as interactive electronic publishing, digital heritage and cultural content, education and training, human language Technologies and information access, filtering and handling.

Key Action 4: Essential technologies and infrastructures Mr. Rainer Zimmermann Directorate-General Information Society(Directorate F) European Commission

To further the development of these technologies and infrastructures common to more than one application, enhance their applicability and accelerate their take-up in Europe.

"WEB technological developments, WEB societal integration" Mr. Vincent Quint Director Europe W3C, INRIA

The explosive growth of technology has forced the entire Web community to look at society's ethical and legal issues from a new international perspective. W3C, through its Technology and Society Domain, seeks to understand these issues in light of new technology -- partly by changing the technology, and partly by educating users about the technology's benefits, costs, and limits.

The W3C Technology and Society Domain concentrates on issues that arise from applications of Web technology. Since Web technology cuts across nations and cultures, W3C is committed to designing mechanisms which will support a diverse range of public policy options. Local policy control must be possible without cultural fragmentation or domination. In turn, W3C's Team and its Members work to educate the public and policy makers about the Web's capabilities, and how these affect, and are affected by, proposed policies. Their current focus is, broadly, on establishing trust in the new medium of the Web. This is a difficult problem, involving both social and technical issues. Trust is established through a complex and ill-understood social mechanism including relationships, social norms, laws, regulations, traditions, and track records. W3C's activities are chosen to focus on specific areas that are both important and tractable. There is a core of technical issues that are required in any system that is to be trusted:

1. The ability to make statements that have agreed upon meanings. The W3C Metadata Activity provides a means to create machine-readable statements.

2. The ability to know who made the statement and to be assured that the statement is really theirs. The W3C Digital Signature Initiative provides a mechanism for signing metadata in order to establish who is making the machine-readable statement.

3. The ability to establish rules that permit actions to be taken, based on the statements and a relationship to those who made the statements. The PICS Rules specification allows rules to be written down so they can be understood by machines and exchanged by users.

4. The ability to negotiate binding terms and conditions. The now-completed JEPI project created the Protocol Extension Protocol (PEP) to provide for negotiation on the Web. Negotiation is also at the core of the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P).

For further information, http://www.w3c.org/

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"Information and Communications: Hitachi's Approach" Mr. Shojiro Asai President of Research & Development group, Hitachi, Ltd.

1. New Directions in Japan
The Japanese Government is taking a leading role in proposing new structures for co-operation between industry, government, and academia. It has targeted Information Technology, Aging, and the Environment as its areas of approach. Under this initiative, we are aiming to build a knowledge-based society-with an active aging society-that is both an economically & environmentally sustainable society.

2. Hitachi's Global R&D
Our labs and R&D group had a parallel relationship. However, after major changes in our internal structure last April, each of our laboratories now functions within the R&D group. And many of our researchers have moved from the labs into business groups in order to work more closely with the business groups.

Hitachi has several research facilities overseas. Among these, four research laboratories are in Europe: Hitachi Cambridge Lab., Hitachi Dublin Lab., Hitachi European Telecom Lab. (in France), and Hitachi Design Centre Europe (located in Italy). In addition, Hitachi is expanding its collaborations with leading European institutions, such as INRIA (in France) and GMD Fokus (in Germany).

3. New Internet Trends
The Internet has grown rapidly and is still growing at a quick pace. New trends in technology include diversified tools to access the Net. The key phrase is "Connected: at home or on the road," with terminals varying from PCs and handheld PCs to cell phones.

4. Seamless Support: You Are the Master
Using the Net, you can access almost all information and services from anywhere you are. Because of the ease of access, Internet-related services have been growing enormously, and Hitachi is trying to become one of the leaders in the industry. As a key to success, we think it necessary to provide seamless support-support which will help users overcome the confusion resulting from rapid technological growth. Hitachi is committed to providing seamless support.

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Mr. Pierre Longin President of Longin & Associates

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is the closing session. The last part before lunch.
What is the purpose of this meeting ?

The purpose is to turn the meeting to you. So let me tell you how we can do that.
Last year, we had a first kick-off meeting in France, and two points were suggested by the participants.

The first one was: we need more information about Hitachi and I hope that we have answered this demand with the presence of most senior executives from Hitachi, Mr. Kuwata and Dr. Asai.
In addition, the Brussels office started the publication of European Connextion, which is really a newsletter directed to the Forum members where their participation will be most welcomed.
The second point was, and we have it also this year, about the objective of this meeting.
We would like to share with you our thoughts about what could be the objective of those meetings.

Yesterday, in his introductory comments, Mr. Koide said that one of his concerns was that never ever should your participation to those meetings create any conflict of interest. To be sure that we are not going to have any conflict of interest, we should address issues which are of significance to the European Society in the fields related to Science and Technology, in other words, the acceptability of new technologies in Europe.

I am sure you know that it is an intense debate in our countries. It was made worse with Chernobyl, the mad cow disease, dioxin in Belgium... Are scientists useful to Society? Are they dangerous to Society?
And we will have to live with that for many years to come. If one day, you have a chance to go to Strasbourg or Brussels, when the committee on research and technology meets, I encourage you to go there, because you will see how complex this issue of acceptability of science and technology is crucial today.

So, what we are suggesting to you, what we want to share with you is that this forum might address specific societal issue related to acceptability of science and technology.
In doing that, I think we achieve two objectives:
The first one is an Hitachi objective which is to contribute to society.
The other one will be your objective: become more committed, more helpful to our European fellows.
It is an ambitious project. No question. It is a project most likely we will have to approach step by step.

You are all HIVIPS, all Europeans, all in the scientific field, all in business.
First, we will have to think that it will be really relevant to you, that is why we have chosen the topic "Information Technology and its benefits to Society". Some of you are directly involved, others are not but the concept remains the same.

Second, the mission is : to try to contribute to European society. How can this be done?

There are two fields in which definitely Hitachi is looking for your contributions, your input.
The first one is related to the topics of the meetings.
The two meetings, the French one and this one, have been organized by Hitachi Brussels with the support of their colleagues in Tokyo. Until now, you were not involved in the definition and selection of the topic. So we are suggesting that, in the future, you will be closely associated with that process.

Those selected topics will be addressed with discussions and presentations, which might combine scientific aspects, societal aspects presented by well-identified speakers, and possibly good speakers. Your help will be needed.

But if we want to make this forum a living organism, there will be a need for kind of progress reports between sessions. That will be a greater involvement of all of you, or some of you and what do I mean for that?

We thought about it, we discussed different scenarios within Hitachi about suggestions, and please consider them as suggestions and no more than that.

We think we should start by a sort of pilot operation and that could be done by some of you, all of you participating into working groups on a well defined issue, for example, and again it is just an example: electronic commerce and European Society.
There will be a flow of work from today until the next meeting next year, on which those volunteers would address the issue, would put together their thoughts and that would be the core of the programme for next year, from which the main topic would obviously derived.

So those are our thoughts.
Let me say that Mr. Koide gave a lot of thoughts about what could be suggested today.
Last year, we were not sure about the commitment of Hitachi in time, because of financial constraints.
This year, we were able to maintain the forum.
What we are going to do is to progressively invite HIVIPS from countries, which are not present today to join us over a certain period of time.
So there will be definitely a meeting next year, it will be in Ireland because HIVIPS from Ireland and U.K. will be joining us. So, that is a commitment by Hitachi.

Now, it is your session and not Hitachi 's session. What we are going to do: Hitachi people are going to leave the room, for about 10 to 15 minutes, so that maybe between yourselves, you will discuss what I briefly mentioned, and maybe some volunteers will appear and Dr. Raue kindly accepted to give us when we will be back to the room a sort of status report of your discussion. We really hope that some of you will volunteer to enter this game because I think we all have an obligation towards our company.

The findings of the forum will be useful not only to Hitachi, but to all companies which are involved in Science and Technology.

They will be useful because yesterday, you had a demonstration of the close links existing between Hitachi and European Commission and obviously, your findings will be shared for example with European Commission officials, Members of the European Parliamentc
So we have an ambitious project.
This is why for the time being I prefer to talk about a pilot project.

Let's test the concept, let's be comfortable with the concept, let's make the concept work and then during the Irish meeting next year, we can decide to go one step further.

So this is the introduction. We are going to leave you for active debate. What we want like to do afterwards is to get your view about the forum.

Thank you.

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Mr. Ralf Raue

During the last part of the meeting moderated by Dr Raue, Forum members were asked to identify fields they were interested in. That session might lead to organized team work to prepare next year's meeting. This is how a working group, made of nine Forum members, was formed to address one of the themes identified by the Forum: Electronic Commerce and European Society. Other identified themes were: Generation Gap, Genetic research and application, Nuclear Power, Aging of population, Intellectual Property Rights.