 Good morning, my name is Sachiko Muto and on behalf of everyone at Open Forum Europe It's it's my pleasure to welcome you all to this fourth annual OFE summit an open vision for Europe and We have a very busy schedule made even busier now And so I'll try to make this these first opening words short Firstly, I'd like to thank vice president Cruz for for returning to us this year Last year the vice president Mentioned in her speech that she'd be happy to come back and continue the dialogue with us And of course we had to take her up on that and she's gracious enough to accept when we invited her So we're happy about that Secondly, I'd like to thank those of you who submitted Suggestions to us for for for topics and speakers that we could include in the program we've tried to Integrate some of those suggestions and In the future we're looking forward to making this process even more sort of interactive and Finally for me, I know that From the feedback that we've had in previous years that our event is also Appreciated for the opportunities for networking that it provides so we've planned for coffee breaks in the morning in the afternoon a In addition to the lunch break, so I'm looking forward to meeting old friends today and also making new contact So I hope you'll do the same and take full advantage of that Having said that it's also my duty to say Please return promptly into the this room so that we can start the sessions on time We'll see we'll have to adjust the schedule slightly now, but probably will will make the sessions slightly tighter So that's it from me just to start off and I'd like to hand over to our chief executive Graham Taylor who will talk a little bit more about How the themes of this year's conference fit with with the overall vision of open-form Europe Graham Taylor Foul is a co-founder of open-form Europe, which is now in its 10th year and Before that he worked for over 30 years in the IT industry Lastly as a director of ICL I think it's fair to say that Graham Taylor is somebody who speaks his mind quite freely and Since I joined OFE Four years ago, this has sometimes been horrifying to me And you know what I'm talking about But mostly I find it refreshing especially in this Brussels context, so Please welcome one of my heroes Graham Taylor Thanks, actually, I think everything there was fine other than the thing about the 30 years, you know the guy has So at let me first grab my personal welcome. So congratulations on actually getting here I have to say whether it's something about running an open conference open vision for Europe on a day when Brussels is closed So we'll see as such. I said, yeah, this is our 10th year and One somebody said to me yeah Graham, but you realize you're now mainstream and that horrified me because that isn't Style, you know, we very much set out to be independent fiercely independent. I have to say obviously not for profit And the whole thing I think is that we really are trying to add value So one of the things about the summit and and the briefings that we run is we're trying to create You know validate test some of the ideas don't just push the same messages and move forward And so the summit is very much part of that So I think we've got a really great speaker lineup for today That gives us a lot of encouragement that people want to come hopefully today But also that we can attract some of the best speakers from the world to really just extend some of the thresholds and the thinkings Over the last year we've we've continued to develop quite clearly RFP We've also introduced something I mentioned last year, which is the open form Academy Which is very much our link with academia and the think tanks So some of the many of the fellows are here at the events. We had a meeting. Yes, these so we actually appointed new four new fellows Yes, the which is good That Organization that initiative will be running additional briefings really testing some of the things So we actually now have two research programs underway run one being run with Delft University Looking at the potential impact of competitive standards and how that might affect the market and we've just Completing with the London School of Economics and work jointly funded with the UK government on the to cost of ownership of open source software So this really is good unbiased research into the thinking Last year though we spent a lot of our time at the summit following up on procurement and that really Continues to be very much Central to what we're thinking and vice president forgive me for quoting you right at the beginning and say When you said we must practice what we promote and for us that is fundamental You can have fantastic strategies government strategies, but if we don't deliver through on them, then why are we bothering? So, you know the statement for me is bad practice in procure in procurement So good practice in procurement will deliver the digital agenda, but bad practice will destroy it So we really are putting a lot of effort and all the work in how do you implementing it? So we work with many of the national governments to doing that, but procurement monitoring is one of the things So it's the carrot and the stick if you like we now Constantly are monitoring the European Journal for large software tenders So today in your pack I think there's a copy of the latest procurement monitoring report and that is still showing that out of the 400 plus tenders that we looked at Some 13% are still potentially illegally using trademarks And that that figure hasn't changed one iota from last year And I think that's the disappointing thing is that we're not seeing any improvement in trend We're also seeing some possibly questionable uses of negotiated procedures And the thing for me is is you can argue what's right or wrong But for us if you really want we really want to see an open market and open digital Europe We must be looking really closely at this procurement activity So we're delighted that the Commission actually are putting a lot of effort into this work But I guess is one of our concerns is there is a need to improve the efficiency of it But if we if we're not careful we could be throwing the baby away with the bath water So we very much plead when we're looking at that exercise is to just to be looking at just to Protecting the opportunity for SMEs and making sure that we don't continue with the lock-in We also and we've had a lot of debates around this is very much welcomed the European interoperability framework now There's a I know a few persons saying, you know, welcome the AIF. So Thank you to coward of ranta. I think he's sitting in the room, you know, yeah He I think he turned a little bit whiter and lost even more hair But we very much applauded what has come out But we also I think recognized and and Carol has had me say this many times before is that for us I think the AIF is an aspirational document and going back to this thing about procurement at national level There is going to need to still to be a lot more detail to enable to really achieve the cross-European Compatibility required and also the ability to deliver some of the details So we're not going to let off at all on our pressure on open standards And that's something that will be touched upon today, but I think again the stage is moved We know what we're trying to achieve. It's just the best way of doing it Last year we also introduced the cloud Very much as a concept and we had a number of speakers starting to talk about that and I think no surprise This is going to be one of the factors that actually runs through over the year into what we're doing For me that's really fascinating is that some of you may remember we two years ago We had Vince surf speaking And he came up with a phrase and it's really good occasionally to have these Sound bites if you like where he said if it's not open. It's not the internet Now I think that was a great phrase and that really summed up what we're trying to do But for me, I'd love to see something as succinct for the cloud because the cloud really is now taking off It's moved beyond the the hype cycle and actually move now into reality So we really need to get this momentum going I absolutely applaud the work again of the Commission in the consultation the work that's going on I think we're already seeing some really good messages coming through that But I think the one message I would say is it's the market is going to happen without that So time is of the essence in doing it. So we really do need to move The other area we introduced last year was around open data And again some of you remember Nigel Shephol speaking on that Around from the UK on what was happening there and that is fascinating because that really did fire up the interest I think many of the delegates and there was an awful lot of feedback from there So again, what's happening with the PSI directories is very important And again, it's an area that for the conference We're going to be speaking a lot about and I'm delighted that we've actually got Severin Norda From the French Prime Minister's office to redress the balance because there's a lot of Brits talking in that area last year So this time we have the the French opportunity to do it So I'm delighted that Severin has accepted to do that We jointly with the Open Knowledge Foundation run the open data challenge earlier this year and Vice-president Crowe's very kindly presented the prizes We put that challenge together very quickly But in a matter of weeks we had 440 entries from 23 countries Now that is a fantastic achievement and it to me it just signified what the opportunity is and We used we've used the internet as the exemplar for openness and the creation of innovation So it's I think actually open data. It is going to be as good as an exemplar as well So in the past we've thought governments think well, they own this data How could they get a return on the investment by selling it by licensing that data? It's turned. It's changed now We're actually seeing the end result and the building of business and the the entrepreneurial activity coming as a result of Opening up that data and I think that is potentially going to be as big as the internet in what we're talking about there An entrepreneur is obviously is one of the focuses for today And as is I think the whole issue of open government. So in the last session, I think we're going to have a really controversial session I hope so at least make sure people coming. So we can actually start putting in to test what this is all about This is actually delivering something. So we've got two really good speakers Talking about e-environment and e-health. So actually looking at some of the vertical and the societal challenges But I think we're also going to take both the consumer view and very much a highly controversial view Or what do we really mean by openness in government? So we have one of the tech top technology writers I think across the whole of Europe to speak in that So I speak very much and asking Government to lead and to challenge and but I think it's also fair that government should be asking industry to be to share that So the work on the the cloud is I think a good indication of how it can come together And we've seen some really good benefits of that but industry I think has got a long way to go We've all seen in the recent weeks and months that the debate around patterns and The selling of patterns from one company to other to protect the that what's happening in there that to me Just seems an incredibly waste of time and is that really helping to grow the market? So maybe this is one area where industry and government do need to come together and just possibly that few things Maybe said about that later in the day But I spoke very much of leadership and courage and Vice President Crozier said this before we really have welcomed the intervention that she's made We've welcomed the the support that you've given as well Well, I think I genuinely am really impressed with the progress that's been made on the digital agenda over the last year As Sachiko said You at the last summit you offered to come back So we're delighted you've accepted that challenge and can I introduce Vice President Crows?