Cloud Forward – From Distributed to Complete Computing

Cloud Forward is an initiative of the HOLA Cloud project: a CSA cofunded by the European Union under the call H2020-ICT-2014-1. It started on 1st January 2015 and will end on 31st December 2016.

The consortium membership’s range of skills expertise and industry connections is well-calibrated to meet the requirements of the project, to achieve the project’s objectives and contribute effectively to the EU Digital Agenda. It has brought together a knowledge alliance from across Europe to deliver this project.

The whole sectoral value chain is represented in terms of:

Technology experts and software integrators
Industrial and entrepreneurial experience
Open innovation expertise
Business planning, market analysis, exploitation models
Dissemination and communication knowledge
Coordination and procedural expertise, particularly in relation to the CSA instrument
Long-standing involvement in Software, Services and Cloud projects
Long experience in event organisation and in chairing scientific committees
Solid experience in building collaboration platforms

HOLA CLOUD – Effective collaboration for European RD and Innovation in software, services and Cloud computing: Knowledge discovery and Roadmapping

Objectives

HOLA CLOUD targets to establish effective mechanisms for efficient collaboration among the members of the software, services and Cloud computing community building on a decade of experiences acquired by people who are themselves core members of this community, and extends this collaboration to stakeholders who can turn the community knowledge into sustainable economic growth. Through a completely new take on scientific collaborations, researchers in the field will be given the opportunity not only to present their results, but they will be pushed to look into the future. The resulting scientific roadmap will be alloyed by database tools at the forefront of technology with federated results from past and present projects and social media into extended, searchable knowledge synthesising what Europe knows, and who knows it. This will enable companies, governments, and politicians to discover best practice solutions to their problems, and to identify future challenges that must be addressed to move European software intensive industries forward.

HOLA CLOUD will initiate an advanced conference series producing and revising an annual technology roadmap and providing an efficient venue for the members of the community to meet and exchange results and ideas for the future. To lower the barriers for industrial take-up, in particular with SMEs, HOLA CLOUD will organise a Hackademy for companies to create solutions to their problems together with the best European experts in the field. These events will be overarched by an advanced on-line platform and knowledge repository ensuring the persistent access to information for all stakeholders.

All the HOLA CLOUD activities and results will be promoted and supported by an efficient communication strategy involving an audience way beyond the normal constituency of the software, services and cloud computing domain with the aim to establish a European Cloud based eco-system that will endure after the end of the project.

Target Users and Stakeholders

The HOLA CLOUD outreach approach is aimed at creating a mechanism for a better R&D and Innovation in the areas of software, services and Cloud computing by providing its stakeholders with tools that:

Are useful for effective collaboration;
Are more influencing than current procedures in terms of promoting active response from the target stakeholders;
Are engaging as stakeholders realise what is in there for them;
Can strengthen active collaboration for better research and innovation in the areas of software, services and Cloud computing.

The primary stakeholders of the HOLA CLOUD project are:

Researchers, interested in increasing the academic merits by participating in the Scientific Conference and publishing their work in high-quality proceedings with a renowned publisher
Industrial players , in search for new trends and products for the future
Related EU funded projects, interested in the discovery functionalities foreseen for the on-line platform and in contributing to the roadmapping also through joint-publications from different projects

The project will also engage with:

Policy makers, interested in the roadmapping co-authored exercise and its relation to public support to European R&D and Innovation in Cloud and services
Brokers (intermediaries), interested in the discovery functionalities foreseen for HOLA CLOUD on-line plaform
Media, publication editors, also interested in the proceedings from the Scientific Conference and the features from the advanced services within the on-line platform.

HOLA CLOUD Results:

The Platform implemented to help players in the R&D and Innovation arena related to software, services and Cloud computing “make sense of research” with one click, and help researchers gain visibility for their work
The Scientific Conference as central element for and effective collaboration and roadmapping and at the same time addressing critical needs from the community behind European R&D and Innovation in software, services and Cloud computing.
The Cloud Hackademy designed for supporting SMEs in ideating, launching, assessing, promoting or consolidating their innovation opportunities for cloud-based service provisioning
The joint Roadmapping exercise to understand how the competitive position of the European Cloud sector could be improved, and identify the way for achieving this vision

Partners