ITEA Cluster emphasises its vitality in Helsinki and Prague

TT-Medal received the ITEA 2005 Achievement Award at the sixth annual ITEA Symposium in Helsinki, Finland on 13 and 14 October 2005. This project has achieved a major breakthrough by developing a generic solution for automated software system testing. The results provide a unique opportunity for European suppliers and consultants to position themselves better in a world market dominated by the USA. "Working with ITEA allowed us to build a consortium of very disparate companies," explained project leader Dr Colin Willcock of Nokia. "The results should enable SMEs to build new testing tools that will put Europe on the map for testing. And winning the ITEA Achievement 2005 Award should now make exploitation easier."

Highlight of the Helsinki event was the introduction of ITEA 2, the follow up to ITEA. ITEA has played a key role in maintaining European leadership in the digital revolution built on embedded software-intensive systems and services, helping boost the competitiveness of many industries. The EUREKA High Level Group confirmed its approval for the ambitious ITEA 2 strategic initiative in Prague on 20 October 2005. ITEA 2 intends to mobilise a total of 20,000 person-years over its full eight-year duration, double that of ITEA. This will require a significant increase in investment to more than €3 billion. "ITEA 2 is essential to maintain the momentum built up by the current highly successful ITEA programme in a dramatically changing world," said new ITEA chairman Rudolf Haggenmüller.