The 11th edition of Smart Event has kept its promises in highlighting new technologies, latest R&D advance and emerging challenges for digital security, mobile computing and e-ID management industries. From social networks to future global e-ID, from smart grids issues to m-payment challenges, the topics addressed have been very rich thanks to nearly 150 speakers' insights. The total audience reached 635 participants: world-class researchers, innovators, developers, business decision-makers spoke, exchanged and networked at the 3 parallel conferences, trainings, demos and side events. The next edition will take place from September 20th to 23rd, 2011.
Paris, October 21st, 2010 – With 635 participants between September 21 and 24, Smart Event'10 confirms as a leading forum for research and industry in digital security, mobile computing and e-ID management. Built around three complementary 3 tech conferences –e-Smart, Smart Mobility and World e-ID–, around the European training program Smart university and several side events (SIG meetings, private demo...), the Innovation Forum for Mobility and Trusted Technologies & Services has attracted 411 companies and organizations coming from 46 countries.
All the statistics are on the rise compared to last year. After a 2009 edition hit by economic downturn, the attendance figures show that this 2010 edition took up the growth seen over the past few years. The audience rose by 8.72%, establishing the average audience growth rate year-on-year at +11.52% over the 6 past editions. The number of organizations attending also increased, from 376 last year to 411.
Full value chain attending
Full value chain of research and industry attended the event, ranging from academics and research centres to key end users, and including digital security industry and service providers. The delegates’ functions reflect a balance between the share of Research and Technical functions (respectively 18% and 24%) and Marketing/Business development and Management functions (respectively 18% and 22%).
Overall, Smart Event confirms its status of an international event with no less than 46 countries represented, of which 87% are European ones. It is to be noted the stronger presence of Middle-East and Africa regions in the participants, sign of the rise of trust and security challenges in these marketplaces as well.
Finally, online statistics confirms Smart Event’s popularity year after year: the website www.smart-vent.eu has received on the average 41,000 unique visitors each month compared to 31,000 in 2009.
Contents: Innovation ahead
Beyond statistics, Smart Event has shown a successful positioning in terms of contents, keeping its balance between R&D, technology and strategy. Away from a business-oriented positioning, the conferences program addressed fundamental topics through latest research results (new threats, cryptography, contactless security, social networks...), emerging technologies (m-payment, new USIM apps, M to M, NFC...) and latest advances of industry (smart grids, Java Card 3.0, m-health, border control...).
In addition to the tech conferences, many participants attended the advanced training modules held in parallel, dedicated to challenging topics such as applied cryptology, M to M ecosystem, cryptographic engineering for embedded devices, Java Card 3.0, mobile technologies and applications.
Innovations were also presented in the exhibition area by Elyctis, Eurosmart, Thales Itself, Turbine Project... Finally, among other side events, the FASTeTEN workshop (Fully Automated Secured Transactions services) and the Accenture Labs live demos are worth to be noted. The latter took place in the nearby Accenture Technology labs Europe and presented the most promising emerging technologies and trends: NFC/mobile payments, biometrics & digital identity, social media.
New social networking issues
Like each year, the Grand Opening plenary session draw the attention to a central security issue for high-tech industry. This year's theme was very timely: the privacy and trust in social networks. As Hal Warren, OpenID Society President, one of the invited panellists, put it, "It is a fragile time for online identity". This high level panel on Social Networks featured Udo Helmbrecht, Executive Director of ENISA, Pr Ronald Leenes, Professor in Regulation by Technology at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (Tilburg University), Gustav Kalbe, Deputy Head of Unit, "Trust & Security" at the EU and Dr Stefan Weiss, Advisory, Risk & Compliance, KPMG.
These inspiring perspectives were enriched by an animated debate on the key security challenges to ensure "trusted mobility". Research heads from the academic and business community shared their views: Waterford Institute, Fraunhofer SIT, Nokia, University of Luxembourg along with ETSI.
Wide range of topics
In the afternoon, and for the two days after, the program offered six parallels sessions with also eminent speakers, for example Karsten Nohl, Chief Scientist of Security Research Labs on Smart Grids Security or Liisa Kanniainen, Executive Director of Mobey Forum on mobile payments.
On the second day, another focus point was the World e-ID plenary session dedicated to future global e-ID. This session featuring prestigious speakers has been very successful and will be renewed next year. Kim Cameron, Chief Architect of Identity & Access, Microsoft, portrayed the Identity Architecture best model, while Amardeo Sarma, Senior Manager, NEC Laboratories Europe defined a Cross-Layer Identity Framework for the Future Internet and standardisation issues clarified by Walter Weigel, Director General of ETSI.
Overall, the Smart Event conferences featured nearly 150 speakers over 3.5 days. At the forefront of e-Smart sessions: smart grids, the "cloud", contactless issues, Java Card, new USIM apps... ; at Smart Mobility: m-payment, TSM role, corporate mobility, cloud computing, M to M, NFC... ; at World e-ID: latest ID metasystems, access control systems, long lasting biometrics solutions, m-health... For all these emerging technologies, the need for trust and security has never been so high, backing up Smart Event contents positioning.
