Contribution to the Next Generation Internet: engaging stakeholders (SpeakNGI)

IES works together with the EU-funded SpeakNGI project team to help develop an understanding of the Next Generation Internet. The Next Generation Internet initiative aims to help shape activities towards the applications, infrastructures and technologies that will be used as the Internet evolves. The SpeakNGI initiative brings together the different communities involved in the development and use of emerging technologies, as well as the regulators and policymakers that define the space in which these actors work. The IES contributes towards the growth of user participation in the policy and regulatory frameworks by using its experience in GIPO. It does this through participation in stakeholder engagement exercises, the writing up of a report on stakeholder engagement activities, and the elaboration of an advisory board for GIPO.

The SpeakNGI.eu project aims to establish and enact an open, dynamic and continuous consultation process with all relevant stakeholder groups on a “citizen-centric” quest to discover their needs for the NGI. The project’s multi-faceted consultation process will be supported by an authoritative SpeakNGI.eu European Champions Panel (ECP) that is composed of carefully selected stakeholder representatives acting as recruiters, motivators and evangelists for NGI activities in their respective domains.

SpeakNGI.eu will ensure fruitful cooperation with the other NGI pathfinder projects, in the gathering of research and innovation topics and shaping the NGI programme, along with the established consultation processes that will run on the SpeakNGI.eu consultation platform, to fully support the establishment of a highly ambitious NGI Flagship toward the end of the Horizon 2020 programme and into FP9.

The core objectives of SpeakNGI.eu include:

• Deliver and maintain a state-of-the-art consultation platform to collate multiple open and dynamic consultation mechanisms for engagement with the NGI Stakeholder community;
• Develop an open and extendable framework to structure and visualise the NGI stakeholderKnowledge Base;
• Establish consultation mechanisms that target stakeholders to cover all necessary dimensions of European society;
• Establish instruments to ensure sustainable access to the consultation process and knowledge for all relevant NGI stakeholder communities beyond 2020, in line with the NGI long-term strategy.

For more information, please visit: https://www.ngi.eu/about/speakngi-eu/