Editorial

Dear ITEA Community,

This will be my last editorial for the ITEA Magazine and I would like to share with you some key points I will keep in my heart from these twelve years of Vice-chairmanship.

First of all, I’m delighted about this unique bottom-up approach. In our hectic digital business domain, innovation is at the heart and innovation is coming from adventurous brains at a moment when the others have not yet thought about it. It is a process very different from the more strategically-oriented innovations we observed with the more top-down decision-making in the IC industry or the birth of Airbus, for example, with its necessary huge start-up investment. Both innovation processes, bottom-up and top-down, are necessary and target different results. In ITEA we cultivate the bottom-up approach. It is not an easy path because you need to invest in projects when little consensus yet exists on the direction to follow. Thus we developed a unique methodology to evaluate and coach these kind of projects, starting with going back to the user. What are the pain points you want to solve for which users and customers? Then challenge the project with the State-of-the-Art (SotA): why can’t we solve the pain points with the existing SotA? Then if you want to push great ideas in our digital industry, you need access to the market, because the time-to-market windows are very short in our business domains. In ITEA we carefully check the market value chains of today and tomorrow, how our consortia have access to them and how they can impact them. It is only when these pain points, targeted user and customer, and access to the value chains are clear that we check the credibility of the proposed technologies to decide which project to bet on.

Since we are in the R&D phase, it remains a gamble, but the ITEA methodology has been enhanced over so many years with so many unique projects that today we are able to exhibit a unique ratio of success stories in the market. ITEA is a recognised approach today in pushing innovation in the market. I am very proud to have participated in this business story.

I have learned a lot with the ITEA Office about setting up a quality assurance process that has no bureaucratic overhead but helps us to master our different tasks in a very professional way. An ISO 9001 stamp is evidence of this. It’s no chocolate medal but real recognition of the professionalism of the ITEA Office team. Year after year this is confirmed by the ITEA Community through surveys which always score very high on the satisfaction of the work done by this team. To have belonged to this team fills me with honour and pride. I thank and applaud them.

I want to stress specifically the ICT system that supports all our processes and is aligned with this quality plan. Due to its data management ITEA has been able to adapt continuously based on facts not dreams. I have also learned a lot with this full digital loop process.

Reading this magazine, it is good to see Finland strengthening even more its innovation and business support with the creation of Business Finland. Finland has always been a great supporter of the ITEA specific approach and it is inspiring to see how Finland is building a digital trust environment that parallels its trusted zone in the physical world.

Don’t forget to check the new bunch of innovative ITEA projects and bet on the ones you feel will deliver the main impacts. For an energy shot, happiness and innovation impact read Robyn Woods and also have a look the article of Jan Segerstam, our new Board member, which explains an incredible success story in digital transformation of Energy ecosystems supported by Empower. The SCALARE Success story shows how ITEA delivers results but also methodologies to master the digital transition. And I am always delighted to tell a success story like Cyclomedia that ITEA has supported. Finally, our quality process is unique, and you have in this edition an in-depth explanation of what lies behind it.

Long live ITEA, I will remember you!

Philippe Letellier