• The aims of the European support to the Mediterranean nodes

• A bulletin : For who ? why ?

• Information days in each country

• Training actions

• A specific Web site

• Information technology in the Mediterranean countries... is taking off !

• The Aldana group

• Who are the contractors in charge of the project ?

The aims of the European support to the Mediterranean nodes

The ITN project is developed within decisions taken by the European Union Council since 1994 in view of preparing the Information Society, of developing an Euro-Mediterranean partnership and of setting up various programmes of cooperation with third Mediterranean countries, mainly in the information technology fields.

The European Commission dedicates substantial resources to activities which are designed to : ensure the relevancy for industry and commerce of IT research; build awareness of newly developed and emerging IT applications, and encourage the adoption of good practice as technologies mature. Successful models for such actions supported by European Commission programmes rely on horizontal networks of interacting organisations. Examples include the Multimedia Support Networks and the Technology Transfer Nodes in High Performance Computing. DGIII, the Directorate General for Industry of the European Commission, is leading an initiative to establish networks of Information Technology Nodes or ITNs in non-EU Mediterranean countries. These will focus on the following generic technologies and applications :

It is intended that the ITNs: will act as regional foci for preparatory activities related to industry oriented research; will build awareness in industry of good practice in IT application sectors; will support the creation and maintenance of local IT skills, and will disseminate information regarding European and Mediterranean activities in these domains. Focusing on regional concerns, the ITNs will draw on the experience of similar networks in Europe.

In practice, nodes will consist of a number of organisations with similar or complementary skills. They will co-operate with each other inside the country, with nodes in Europe, and with ITNs in other countries of the Mediterranean region. ITNs are expected to initiate a variety of activities such as training, dissemination, demonstration and awareness building. They should establish and maintain links with related activities in Europe.

In 1997, a survey was carried out to gauge the level of interest of Mediterranean organisations desiring to participate in IT Networks. The level of interest was high and the objective now is to establish Mediterranean ITNs as functional units with plans for concrete and relevant activities to be carried out. The first steps consist of providing expert advice and guidance on two themes:

- The Management of an ITN as a horizontal organisation in an ITN Network;

- The planning and execution of activities of ITNs in each of the IT domains;

Between February and June 1998 the Commission will visit each of the 12 non-EU Third Mediterranean Countries, to explain to interested parties about related activities in Europe and how these might be realised in the Mediterranean. After each visit, discussions will take place on the provision of advice and guidance, which is intended to start in June. ITN action plans will be elaborated. Actions should start in September 1998. Progress on the establishment of ITNs, and in the implementation of ITN actions will be monitored by the European Commission until the year 2000.

During the setting up of cooperative networks of ITNs, three organisations will help nodes for preparing action plans (Cf specific section)

The two others themes (high performance computing and networking ; technologies for business processes) will be developed in a second phase.

This euro-med project is yours ! The success is depending of your active contribution, of your initiatives, of your ability to demonstrate your dynamism. Be better than your colleague and do it know !

A bulletin : For who ? Why ?

During all of the ITN project (1998-1999), various actions will be organised in the Mediterranean countries within the setting-up of networks of information technology nodes. It seems useful to have a medium to disseminate information to the organisations concerned. For Mediterranean countries, it will be more than 120 organisations that will participate in the project and that will have to work together, or in the same direction. In addition, there will also be actions developed by European nodes.

You will find in this bulletin practical information on training sessions and short presentation of actions set up by each participant.

Information days

Several meetings concerning the information on the ITN project, organised by the European Commission, were held, or will be held, in the Mediterranean countries. The calendar is as follows :

- 22 February : at HIAST, in Damas

- 24 February : at the Ecole Supérieur d’Ingénieurs, in Beyrouth

- 25 February : at the Royal Scientific Society, in Amman

- 03 March : at the University of Cyprus

- 16 March : Israel

- 18 March : Palestine

- 23 March : Morocco

- 10 April : Tunisia (with the participation of Algerian organisations)

- 24 April : Egypt

- 28 May : Malta

- 12 June : Turkey

Training actions

These training seminars are intended for persons in charge or specialists of the organisations that desire to be candidates for constituting a network of information technology nodes. The detailed programme, the conditions for participating and the practical information will be sent to you shortly, as and when the dates are fixed. Lest one forget, the general outline is as follows :

There will be a seminar held in each country. This will be carried out in two phases : one 3 -day session followed, about one month later, by a 2-day session. The objective : to give you several basic principals on how to succeed in setting-up cooperative networks of specialised nodes and in formulating a plan of action for managing these networks for the period 1998-1999.

There will be a seminar held in each country.

There will be a seminar held in each country (4 days).

There will only be one seminar held, that is to say one for the 12 countries, and that will be held in Grenoble, France, on the Centre TIME premises, towards the end of the year (2 weeks).

Opening of a specific Web site

Here the URL of this new site opened (partially) since the 4th may :

<http://www.mitcenters.org>

A part can be freely accessed (in french and in english) and will facilitate a more extensive communication on actions developped by each IT node during the implemntation phase;

You will find the following items :

- presentation of the project

- the context of the Euro Mediterranean cooperation

- a link to the main European nodes

- a selection of Mediterranean events

This Web site is yours : bring news (directly or by links with your local Web site). Send to us your information, by e-mail, to : e.sutter@bvdparis.imaginet.fr

An other part is reserved for the participants of the ITN project with more or less the same content as this bulletin. Password will be communicate to the members of the network during may.

• EURO-MED NET 98 (www.euromednet.ucy.ac.cy/body_indes.html)

This international conference, that was held from 4 to 7 March 1998 in Nicosie (Cyprus), considered the roof Internet in the development of the European-Mediterranean information society...

• Euro-Med Cultural Heritage Workshop. Towards the Information Society, Cairo, 27th-29th April 1998 (www.cultureware.ritsec.com.eg/culture98/)

• Multimedia Technologies Workshop Content, Infrastructure and Expertise towards a Euro-Mediterranean Multimedia Industry, Malta, 29th-31th May 1998. (www.medmultimedia.org)

• Policies and Business Strategies for the Information Society in the Euro-Mediterranean Region, Istanbul, 15-16 June 1998.

These workshops are organised by the Piloting Committee of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society (the Aldana group) in order to promote the creation of Mediterranean multimedia content.

The Aldana Group

The Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union organised a Ministerial Conference in Rome on the 30-31st May 1996 entitled "The Creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society- communication, education and training, research". This meeting led to an action plan which included the organisation of expert level Information Society workshops on themes of importance to Europe and the Mediterranean. Such workshops would provide support for the political dialogue and would lead to recommendations for tangible actions such as Information Society Pilot Projects, suitable for funding under the European Commission MEDA programme. The Euro-Mediterranean Information Society Steering Committee also known as the Aldana Group was created at the Rome conference on the initiative of Prof. Fernando Aldana - the Director General for Research and Development in the Spanish Ministry for Education. The Aldana Group is composed of high level experts from government, industry and academia, from the 12 Mediterranean third countries, and from the 15 member states of the European Union. Its role is to oversee the conception of expert level workshops, when necessary to solicit assistance from the European Commission to ensure the effective organisation of the workshops, and to communicate to the European Commission recommendations which arise. At the first meeting of the Aldana Group held in Brussels in July 1996, the Director General Juan Prat decided that DGIB of the European Commission should provide the secretariat for the Aldana Group. At this meeting 11 Information Society themes of importance to Europe and the Mediterranean were established. The Aldana Group undertook to stimulate the organisation of corresponding workshops, and the involvement of European and Mediterranean experts in their implementation. The next formal meeting of the Aldana Group will take place all day on June 14th 1998, during the workshop in Istanbul.

Thematic workshops organised to date are as follows:

26-27th May 1997 in Cairo, Egypt: Satellite Communication Workshop. Organised by Italy and Egypt. Contact: H. Roessig DGIII, Tel: 32-2-2954284.

4-6th July 1997 in Metsovo, Greece: Electronic Commerce Workshop: Organised by the Ignatia Epirus Foundation in Greece. http://www.uoi.gr/ecommerce.

10-12th October 1997 in La Toja, Spain: Piloting Information Technologies - Solutions for Industries and Services: Organised by Spanish Government. http://www.cicyt.es/euromed/princip.htm.

4-7th March 1998 in Nicosia, Cyprus: EURO-MED NET ´98: Role of the Internet and the WWW in the Development of the Euro-Mediterranean IS: Contact Andreas Pitsillides, Fax: 357-2-339062, Euromednet98@turing.cs.usy.ac.cy. See http://euromednet.ucy.ac.cy/

13-16th April 1998 in Tunis, Tunisia: The Information Society in Healthcare and Epidemiology Workshop: Organised by France and Tunisia: Contact: Prof. Koussay Dellagi, Fax: 216-1-791833.

27th-29th April 1998 in Cairo, Egypt: Multimedia Access to Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Heritage. Contact: Regional Information Technology Institute Conference Secretariat Fax: 202-3391380, email: culture98@riti.ritsec.com.eg

29-31st May 1998 in Malta: Multimedia Technologies: Contact Saviour Baldacchino Fax: 356-486229, Juanito Camileri email:juan@cs.um.edu.mt .

15-16th June 1998 in Istanbul, Turkey: Policies and Business Strategies for the IS in the Euro-Mediterranean Region. Contact Faruc Eczacibasi, Tel: 90-212-2786255, Email: faruk@eczacibasi.com.tr.

15-16th October 1998 in Marakesh, Morocco: Workshop on Education and Information Society: Contact: Mr. Abdelfdil Bennani of ENSIAS in Morocco, Fax: 212-7-777230, email bennani@mtds.co.ma .

November 1998 in Petra, Jordan: IT Applied to Natural Resource Management. Organised by Jordan and Palestine. Contact: Dr. Y. Nusseir, Fax: 962-6-837168, Email: ynusseir@petra.nic.gov.jo.

Who are the contractors in charge of the project ?

Bureau van Dijk carries out administrative organisation studies, in particular more orientated towards the design, analysis and implementation of information systems. In this framework, it formulates Master plans for computerised and office automation systems and ensures the follow-up of the setting-up of such systems. It also conducts audit and assessment studies of existing systems.

Bureau van Dijk intervenes in the project at several levels :

- Co-ordinates in the setting-up actions in the framework of the project and liaison with the European Commission ;

- Conducts seminars from the support to the setting-up of co-operative networks ;

- Diffuses of information via the Web site and a liaison bulletin.

The project leader is Eric Sutter

Planet Consortium, in the framework of the project from the support to the setting-up of nodes in the Mediterranean countries, regroups the following organisations :

- Planet S.A.

- Intracom S.A.

- Finmeccanica Tyechnologies Srl

- Centrol de Calculo de Sabadell S.A.

Planet Consortium is in charge of the training about Web and multimedia technologies and Software quality

The project leader is Raphael Koumeri

The Centre TIME is part of the “Ecole Supérieur de Commerce” Group in Grenoble, a high school specialized in management of technologies and innovation

The Centre TIME is in charge of the training about electronic commerce and technologies for Business Processes

The project leader is Mohammed Matmati

Monthly Bulletin created to the initiative of European Commission (DG III)

Coordination by : Eric Sutter

Bureau van Dijk, 57 Bd de Montmorency F-75016 PARIS

Tél.: 33 1 45 24 49 10 Fax : 33 1 45 25 08 04

E-Mail : e.sutter@bvdparis.imaginet.fr