Ken Sakamura, Chair of T-Engine Forum, gave a keynote speech on June 19, 2012 at the opening session of IoT-Week 2012 held in Venice, Italy. IoT-Week is a networking event for the IoT-related (Internet of Things: similar to "Ubiquitous Computing") research communities and project teams in Europe. As IoT-Week is a very important conference where all of the IoT-related parties in Europe get together, most of the parties who have been involved in IoT research projects such as CASAGRAS2, IoT-A (Internet-of-Things Architecture), IoT-I (IoT initiative) and IERC (European Research Cluster on the Internet of Things) participated in it. Chair Sakamura spoke at the joint opening session on June 19 as one of the six keynote speakers. The speakers from the regions other than Europe were only two; one was from the United States, and the other was Chair Sakamura from Japan.
The venue of conference, "Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista," is the building owned by a large association of believers which has been established unique to Venice in the thirteenth century （an organization which is widely engaged in public projects including charity with the funds donated by merchants, etc.—what is currently called a religious NGO）. This building is used for international conferences, etc. often in Venice as it has large conference halls to hold meetings for the association despite the limited land in Venice. It is a fascinating medieval architecture with high ceiling. It is decorated with wall paintings and sculptures which symbolize the lavishness in Venice of the time when the construction started in the fourteenth century.
Unfortunately, it was the hottest summer for June in Venice in 250 years, and the temperature was 35 degrees during the IoT-Week. The conference was held in the sweltering medieval architecture without air conditioners (or the conditioner did not work properly) in the city of waterways with high humidity. However, the venue was literally hot with many participants: approximately 500 at the opening session, total of thousands during the whole IoT-Week.
In the keynote speech, Chair Sakamura made a proposal by speaking about the possibility of cooperation between EU and Japan in the IoT field. The proposal was based on the MOU on the mutual collaboration between EIoTA and YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory which was signed at TRONSHOW2012 at the end of the last year. The effectiveness of T-Kernel for the development of IoT devices is getting a lot of attention as well as the direct collaboration such as ucode use for specific IoT project.
On the previous day of the speech, Chair Sakamura had a meeting with EIoTA to discuss the specific cooperation plan. Positive development is expected, such as possibilities to establish a uID Center in Italy following Finland as the second such center in Europe, and to provide T-Kernel classes at Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" (Sapienza University of Rome).
