Past Events

The European Cloud conference, organized by the European Security Round table took place on 27th January 2015 at the NH Grand Place Arenberg in Brussels, Belgium. The conference focused on how access to cloud services in Europe is still hampered by a number of uncertainties and challenges, which vary from use case to use case. Depending on the type of data, type of service, and need for control, adoption of the cloud may be impeded by legal, technical, operational or economic barriers.

On Tuesday 9th December 2014, in London, took place the THINK Cloud Vendors one day conference. The event focused on providing to the audience, mainly UK cloud providers and representatives of the UK government, a better understanding of the opportunities available across the G-Cloud Platform and Digital Marketplace, highlighting the challenges faced and promoting effective strategies for the supplier community when selling cloud services to the Public Sector.

Under Digital Agenda, the European Commission commits itself through Action 23 to provide guidance on the link between ICT Standardisation and Public Procurement in order to help public authorities use standards to promote efficiency and reduce lock-in.

As a matter of fact, using ICT open standards results in:
- Higher savings when procuring ICT
- An increased level of competition among suppliers
- Being compliant with EU Public Procurement directives

The Helix Nebula Initiative General Assembly "Enabling a Dynamic Cloud Ecosystem" was held on 26-27 November 2014 at ESA/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy. The first day of the event focused on enabling the dynamic creation of value chains under the Helix Nebula initiative. The second day focused on the procurement of cloud services in Europe bringing together the members of the PICSE initiative (www.picse.eu).