Editorial

“The times they are a changing,” Bob Dylan already sang in 1964, and his words then are definitely appropriate to the age we are in now. According to some, we are moving towards a period of exponential growth, which is currently shown by phenomena like global urban population growth, mobility, number of ageing people, use of smart phones, increasing proportion of middle classes in the emerging economies, etc.

Software is one of the drivers of this growth, but it also delivers solutions to control and balance that growth. Moore’s law is no longer the most prominent; software and big data are the factors that create enormous possibilities for innovation, new products and services in modern-day society.

In this magazine we see some great examples in engineering/modelling application areas, such as the OPEES project, in which open source partnerships facilitate model-based system engineering. We also see the strong positive effect of innovative software technology in improving our healthcare, as attributed to a project such as BENEFIT, which dramatically improves the success rate of the surgical treatment of aneurysms.

MODRIO is also a great example of how software innovation helps to balance and control growth, e.g. for increasing renewable energy generation. The project leads to solutions that, amongst others, help enhance the energy transition, for which supply and demand of renewable energy need very secure finetuning and actions to maintain a balanced energy grid.

Sustainability and energy are also topics of the Smart Cities World Expo that will be held in Barcelona from 19 till 21 November. ITEA is proud to be prominently present during this event. No less than 12 projects will be participating in the ITEA booth while ITEA Chairwoman Zeynep Sarilar and Vice-chairman Philippe Letellier will both give presentations and contribute to dedicated workshops about Smart Cities and digital innovation.

Smart Cities provide the perfect platform to show how software innovation can enhance growth by new products and, at the same time, deliver solutions to deal with the limits of growth in the urban world.

AI can play a special role this respect, for example by making more and more precise predictions and supporting direct decisions and actions. ITEA is strengthening its position on AI, as evident in several articles in this magazine and at the ITEA Project Outline Preparation Days in Amsterdam, where it was the most represented topic/technology. How AI will change our lives is something we do not know yet, but time will change, and it will change fast. If we do not actively gain a leading position, others will and we will have to follow. ITEA is a strong Community that has the companies, trusted environment and knowledge that is needed to be the innovator on AI. Crucial for the future position of Europe and Eureka partner countries. Without a strong position they might get squeezed by the US and the Far East. By investing in state-of-the-art research, but also by supporting AI propositions towards applications that can be introduced in the market and have business prospects and opportunities we can ensure our future position. This is where ITEA is ready to play its role as the industry-driven Community that is able to develop AI top-knowledge applications that will have an impact on the market and, in the end, our changing daily lives.

Jan Jonker