The high-level Regulation4Innovation conference takes place annually in Brussels. It is a gathering of leading experts in the field of technology, discussing its topical and fundamental issues.
The first edition of the conference took place on the 25th of May 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. Its two sessions brought together several senior politicians including the European Commissioners for Competition Margrethe Vestager and Research, Science & Innovation Carlos Moedas, and the UK’s Minister for Europe David Lidington. Among the notable business representatives were Spotify co-founder and board chairman Martin Lorentzon, Rachel Whetstone, senior vice-president at Uber, Alessandro Curioni, Head of IBM Research for Europe, and Amazon Web Services’ Business Development Lead and Solutions Architect Attila Narin.
The two-hour event, chaired by the Financial Times’ Chief Editor for Brussels Alex Barker, was attended by more than a 100 stakeholders from across Europe, including representatives from some of the companies recognized at the 2015 BAIT Awards, part of the 2015-2016 eSkills for Jobs campaign.
Speaking at the start of the conference, Commissioner Moedas said ‘We are currently trying to regulate things we are not familiar with. Over 80% of the data out there at the moment is unstructured, like dark matter, and we need the computing power of large cloud systems to make sense of and harness it to our advantage’
In turn, Commissioner Vestager defended ‘careful’ regulation and global standards (such as GSM), arguing that they create a competitive environment where businesses are encouraged to innovate without monopolizing the market and stifling promising start-ups.
The day concluded with the decision to establish a high-level Council to manage the regulation of new business and market models, promote digitalization and facilitate innovation.
More details of the 2017 #Regulation4Innovation conference to follow.