The Opening Plenary sets the scene and outlines the policy perspectives on bridging national, European and international solutions in the area of data infrastructures and data management, with particular focus on EU-US cooperation. The presentations will address the data infrastructure divide between disciplines, communities and countries, and explore how they can foster European cohesion going forward.
 

OPENING PLENARY
chaired by Axel Berg, Deputy Director SURFsara & EUDAT Executive Board Member
13:30 - 13:40 Welcome

Axel Berg, Deputy Director SURFsara & EUDAT Executive Board Member

Axel has a background in biochemistry/biophysics where he obtained his PhD at Wageningen University in 1997. He is chair of the executive team of the Dutch national e-Science infrastructure, which supports data-intensive sciences in the Netherlands. For the EUDAT consortium, he is member of the EUDAT council and of the EUDAT Executive Board. During recent years he has been active in European e-infrastructures like PRACE and EGI, in particular with focus on operations and user-driven collaborations across e-infrastructures. In the past he has been leading PRACE Operations. Axel has a clear focus on the scientific users and the effective use of the infrastructure services. His vision is to provide in collaboration sustainable services to the scientific user communities in Europe, to develop new and innovative services together with user communities.
13:40 - 14:10 The Data-enabled Revolution in Science and Society: A Need for (Inter)National Data Services and Policies

Edward Seidel, Director, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, US

NCSA director Edward Seidel is a distinguished researcher in high-performance computing and relativity and astrophysics with an outstanding track record as an administrator. In addition to leading NCSA, he is also a Founder Professor in the University of Illinois Department of Physics and a professor in the Department of Astronomy. His previous leadership roles include serving as the senior vice president for research and innovation at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, directing the Office of Cyberinfrastructure and serving as assistant director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the U.S. National Science Foundation, and leading the Center for Computation & Technology at Louisiana State University. He also led the numerical relativity group at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) in Germany.
14:10 - 14:40  Bringing Data e-Infrastructures to Horizon2020

Carl-Christian Buhr, Member of the Cabinet of Ms Neelie Kroes, Vice?President for Digital Agenda, European Commission

Carl-Christian Buhr, an economist and computer scientist, since 2010 has been a member of the cabinet of Digital Agenda Commissioner and EU Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes. Among others, Dr. Buhr advises the Vice-President on ICT research policy, high-performance computing and e-infrastructures. He was also closely involved in spearheading the Commission's policies on open access to research information and data. Previously he dealt with antitrust and merger control investigations by the Commission, such as the Microsoft antitrust case and the Oracle/Sun Microsystems merger.
14:40 - 15:00  What's on the Horizon?

Kimmo Koski, Managing Director CSC - IT Center for Science, Finland & EUDAT Co-ordinator

Kimmo Koski started in his current position as Managing Director of the Finnish IT center for science, CSC, in August 2004. Prior to his present position, Koski spent 4.5 years in Nokia Research Center and Nokia Technology Platform. Earlier work experience includes 10 years at CSC in various positions and a one-year visiting period in CERN in Switzerland. Koski received his doctorate from Helsinki University of Technology in January 1996. His dissertation was on Metacomputing Technology. During the recent years Koski has been active in building European HPC and data infrastructure through involvement in major EU initiatives, such as PRACE and EUDAT. Koski has acted as the vice chair of PRACE council in 2010-2013 and the coordinator of EUDAT since October 2011.