Thirty young leaders from the worlds of business, academia and research shared their inspiring ideas with policy-makers and business executives at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Foundation's Annual Innovation Forum in Brussels today. The young professionals, entrepreneurs and students presented ideas for business opportunities in areas ranging from healthcare to energy production and market information. The EIT Foundation young leaders' programme aims to discover a new generation of talented entrepreneurs who can drive the development of sustainable innovation in the EU.

The Steering Board of the new European Cloud Partnership (ECP) met for the first time in Brussels today, kicking-off a process where public authorities and industry work together to help building the EU Digital Single Market for cloud computing pursuant to the European Cloud Computing Strategy. Specifically, the ECP aims at leveraging the public sector's buying power to shape the growing and maturing market for cloud computing services. Chaired by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia, the board brings together tech Chief Executive Officers and government representatives with responsibility for IT procurement. The board will deliver strategic advice to Vice President Kroes.

"Today's adoption of the Orphan Works Directive is a significant achievement in our efforts to create a digital single market. It will enable easy online access for all citizens to our cultural heritage. The swift and successful outcome of the legislative process and the broad consensus reached both in the Council and the Parliament prove that by working together we can agree on measures to ensure that the EU copyright rules are fit for purpose in the digital age. Alongside other achievements such as the European Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate the mass digitisation of out-of-commerce books, this Directive is one more step in making licensing and online access to cultural content easier."

What are orphan works and why is a directive to deal with them needed? What organisations will benefit from the Directive? What works are covered by the Directive? What are the main elements of the new Directive? What more can be done to promote digital libraries?

Frequently Asked Questions on Cloud computing and the European Cloud Partnership (ECP)

The European Commission's new strategy for "Unleashing the potential of cloud computing in Europe" outlines actions to deliver a net gain of 2.5 million new European jobs, and an annual boost of EUR 160 billion to EU GDP (around 1%), by 2020. The strategy is designed to speed up and increase the use of cloud computing across the economy. 'Cloud computing' refers to the storage of data (such as text files, pictures and video) and software on remote computers, which users access over the internet on the device of their choice. This is faster, cheaper, more flexible and potentially more secure than on-site IT solutions. Many popular services such as Facebook, Spotify and web-based email use cloud computing technologies but the real economic benefits come through widespread use of cloud solutions by businesses and the public sector.

Opportunities for apps developers, designers and other digital innovators will be boosted as the digital portal Europeana opens up its dataset of over 20 million cultural objects for free re-use. The massive dataset is the descriptive information about Europe's digitised treasures. For the first time, the metadata is released under the Creative Commons CC0 Public Domain Dedication, meaning that anyone can use the data for any purpose - creative, educational, commercial - with no restrictions. This release, which is by far the largest one-time dedication of cultural data to the public domain using CC0 offers a new boost to the digital economy, providing electronic entrepreneurs with opportunities to create innovative apps and games for tablets and smartphones and to create new web services and portals.

The European Commission has proposed measures to modernise collecting societies and put in place incentives to promote their transparency and efficiency. New digital technologies are opening up great opportunities for creators, consumers and businesses alike. Increased demand for online access to cultural content (e.g. music, films, books) does not recognise borders or national restrictions. Neither do the online services used to access them. This is where collecting societies come into play, in particular in the music sector, where they collectively manage the licensing of copyright-protected music tracks for online use on behalf of composers and lyricists and collect and redistribute to them corresponding royalties.

Ahead of this week's European Council summit, the EU Media Futures Forum commissioned by Neelie Kroes has delivered a wake-up call to leaders about what they and the industry need to do to transform this sector – a sector employing 10 million people and the foundation of public debate in Europe. The groups outlines 8 bottlenecks in the Digital Single Market and 8 solutions – ranging from VAT treatment to broadband to copyright and cross-border journalism – with actions needed for the media sector to contribute to Europe's growth.

The European Commission has today called for a European effort to boost Key Enabling Technologies (KETs). The global market in KETs, which comprises micro- and nanoelectronics, advanced materials, industrial biotechnology, photonics, nanotechnology and advanced manufacturing systems, is forecast to grow from € 646 Billion to over € 1 Trillion between 2008 and 2015; this is a jump of over 54%, or more than 8% of the EU's GDP. Rapid growth in jobs is expected, too. In nanotechnology industries alone, the number of jobs in the EU is expected to increase from 160,000 in 2008, to around 400,000 by 2015. The European Commission tabled its strategy today to boost the industrial production of KETs-based products, e.g. innovative products and applications of the future. The strategy aims to keep pace with the EU’s main international competitors, restore growth in Europe and create jobs in industry, at the same time addressing today's burning societal challenges. As a matter of fact, Europe is a global leader in KETs research and development with a global share in patent applications of more than 30%. Despite this, the EU is not translating its dominant R&D base into the production of goods and services needed to stimulate growth and jobs. This is why the Commission calls for a European effort to boost KETS.

Representatives of the EU's ebook value chain met in Brussels today for high-level discussions on creating a digital single market for ebooks. Participants included Vice- President Neelie Kroes, and representatives from major publishing and distribution companies and platform providers.

The European Commission just took another step towards a Cloud Active Europe with the signature of a grant agreement for Helix Nebula. The Commission is giving €1.8 million in funding to this initiative which will develop cloud services in the scientific domain by partnering main research infrastructures in Europe (CERN, EMBL and ESA) with main stakeholders in the industry (e.g. Atos, T-systems, etc). The Commission's grant will support moving flagship applications (Atlas HEP, Genomic Assembly in the Cloud and Supersites Exploitation Platform) to the cloud, while identifying business opportunities for cloud services for the scientific community.

The European Commission has awarded prizes to the winners of the eInclusion awards at the Digital Agenda Assembly held in Brussels on 21st and 22nd June 2012. People from all walks of life participated in two categories of a competition: “I am Part of IT” designed for individuals and organisations whose use of IT helped overcome exclusion or brought new skills; and “Be Part of IT” designed for organisations or individuals who champion e-Inclusion by undertaking and supporting relevant initiatives.

Pin your favourite European masterpiece to your digital notice board. Discover Europe's cultural heritage on LCD screens at your gym or café. Create and share personal art guides on your smartphone. European web developers have come up with these ideas in a competition to create apps that expand the reach of Europeana, Europe's digital library, museum and archive. Participants in Hack4Europe 2012 developed new ways of sharing, re-using, creating or opening-up access to the 23 million digitised objects on www.europeana.eu . Their efforts showcase the social and business value of open cultural data in Europe. Awards were presented to winners of hackathons in Belgium, Latvia and Poland at the Digital Agenda Assembly in Brussels.

Cognicor Technologies, a Spanish start-up offering an automated complaint resolution service, is the winner of Europe's "Tech All Stars" prize, an EU-wide competition to find the best web start-up, awarded by European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes. Cognicor will showcase its company at the Digital Agenda Assembly today in Brussels.

For some time, we have been working to bring together everyone who needs to get involved – from doctors to medical device makers, from investors to ICT experts – to promote our vision of an innovation friendly, sustainable, affordable and high quality healthcare for all Europeans. At the end of February, we asked people to commit – in writing – to concrete actions and deliver tangible results through partnerships. The response to this invitation has been impressive. We received close to 300 hard “commitments to action”, and 60 locations willing to serve as ‘Reference Sites’ (regions, municipalities, health jurisdictions, etc.) for implementing the EIP actions.

Just in time for the summer holidays, the EURO 2012 Football Championship and the London 2012 Olympics, the European Commission has launched an application for smartphones explaining how to use the European Health Insurance Card. The Card gives people access to state-provided healthcare in case of illness or an accident during travel and temporary stays in 31 European countries. The Card is available – free of charge - from national health insurance providers. It guarantees access to urgent treatment under the same conditions and at the same cost (free in some countries) as people insured in that country.

The European Commission has proposed new rules to enable cross-border and secure electronic transactions in Europe. The proposed Regulation will ensure people and businesses can use their own national electronic identification schemes (e-IDs) to access public services in other EU countries where e-IDs are available. It also creates an internal market for e-Signatures and related online trust services across borders, by ensuring these services will work across borders and have the same legal status as traditional paper based processes. This will give full effect to the major potential savings of eProcurement.

Questions & Answers

More than 800 members are currently taking part in the online discussion platform which Neelie Kroes launched on 19 April in preparation for the Digital Agenda Assembly (Brussels, 21-22 June) and the forthcoming review of the Digital Agenda for Europe. The members making the most interesting contributions in each group will be invited to attend the Assembly. Highlights include, an active online forum on Public Services and sustainability featuring a lively discussion in which concrete ways Europe should enable and deliver innovation in digital public services and sustainability . The Jobs and Skills online forum has also engaged participants to discuss how to bridge the gap between the shortage of ICT skilled workforce and the high supply of young Europeans in search for a job and an attractive career . They are already sharing good examples of practices (from ICT companies or others) bridging that gap. Share your example ! If you are interested in these or other issues discussed in the platform, join and contribute to the debate