Keynote Speech I

Title: The European FIRE Future Internet Research and Experimentation Initiative
   
Speaker: Dr. Max Lemke

Deputy Head
Unit for “New Infrastructure Paradigms and Experimental Facilities”
Directorate General Information Society and Media of the European Commission
 
Abstract:     The first wave of projects under the European FIRE "Future Internet Research and Experimentation" Initiative has started in summer 2008. A new Call for proposals is planned to be opened before summer 2009. FIRE addresses the emerging expectations which are being put upon the Internet, by providing a research environment for investigating and experimentally validating highly innovative and revolutionary ideas. FIRE has two interrelated dimensions: (1) FIRE Facility: Building the FIRE experimental facility to support research for the Future Internet, at different stages of the R&D cycle, based on the design principle of "open coordinated federation of testbeds". (2) FIRE experimentally-driven research: Visionary multidisciplinary research, defining the challenges for and taking advantage of the FIRE Experimental Facility, consisting of iterative cycles of research, design and large-scale experimentation of new and innovative network and service architectures and paradigms for the Future Internet from an overall system perspective. It is planned to give an overview of the FIRE activities, the strategy behind, and the future vision and plans.
 
Biography:    Dr. Max Lemke is the Deputy Head of Unit for “New Infrastructure Paradigms and Experimental Facilities” in the Directorate General Information Society and Media of the European Commission. In particular, he is responsible for building the European FIRE Future Internet Research and Experimentation Facility.

Since 1995, Max Lemke has worked as scientific officer for the Commission in the domains “High Performance Computing and Networking” in Esprit 4, and “Communication, Computation, Networking” as well as “Trust and Security” in FP5-IST. From 2002 – 2006, as Deputy Head of Unit he was responsible for building anew strategic objective on "Grid Technologies".

Before joining the Commission, Max Lemke has worked in research and industry in Germany, the US, the UK, and Belgium. With a Doctorate in Natural Sciences from the University of Düsseldorf and a Diploma in Mathematics from the University of Bonn, he has a scientific background in numerical mathematics, parallel computing, and software engineering.