Hurray!  We launched the questionnaire about the Flagship Next Generation Internet initiative this week.  Pretty soon we'll know the most critical technology areas upon which to unleash the collected might of the European talent!

But which areas?  And what talent?  The stats are coming in.  But are you represented?

Of course, this is just one part of a programme to determine how a large chunk of the EU's research fund will be spent on supporting European research, innovation and businesses in the period 2021-2027.  But, because these questionnaires are great at boiling down the qualitative judgements of the many into a single set of quantitative measures, they will make a BIG impact on the decisions to be made.

See if you can identify with initial findings -and the people who found them- that's great!  And if not... the consultation is still open!  But move fast!

The consultation is open to all, but just who is responding? 

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Who's contributing to the Next Generation Internet Consultation?

The biggest group responding to the questionnaire are researchers, followed by civil society and SME/ Start-ups.  Is that as it should be?  Surely this group  has the more forward thinking views, perhaps less encumbered by the state of things today? So it's good (right?) that the established ICT sector and larger industry is a rather small proportion of the responders. 

Okay, so 86% of respondents are male.  Does this really matter?  Well, last year an analysis of Australian start-ups discovered there were more male CTO's named "Peter" in Australia than there were any women as CTOs of any company!  But that's Australia -not famed for equality. 

Let's look at Italy instead (though 20 countries are represented in the study, 23% of respondees come from Italy!).  There are 609 000 start-ups there, and of these fully 1/3 are run by women.  Oooh! So why are only 14% of our respondents women?  Are they bothered?  Are you?

Another thing to consider is that 34% of the respondents are likely to have retired by the end of the period in question.  Might this effect the responses?

So it's a nice representative sample right? Not convinced?  You know what you can do ;-)

What's the most important thing to fix about the internet?

By a long way the strongest views are that the internet " should ensure citizens' sovereignty over their own data and protect privacy." 

It's clearly an important area as we citizens are constantly trading our privacy for the convenience of apps that made our lives appear slightly more entertained or simpler for a few months.

But what about safety issues? Sustainability? Diversity?  And just why should it be that the majority of the internet is channelled by a few proprietary platforms?

Feel under-represented?  You have only yourself to blame unless you answer the questionnaire and get involved!

What's to come

I hope you like this blog post.  In the next couple of weeks I will be creating an interim report which I really hope you'll enjoy.  And I hope you can contribute to it too by posting against the blog here and  Twittering these ideas around.