2007 Silver ITEA Achievement Award recognizes Barco’s contribution to AGILE software engineering methodology
KORTRIJK, Belgium, 8 November 2007 – Barco’s avionics division has been awarded a 2007 Silver ITEA Achievement Award for its contribution to the AGILE software engineering project. The AGILE project, which involves partners from Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and The Netherlands, set out to prove that the application of agile processes speeds up embedded software development and boosts quality. During extensive trials with more than 1800 engineers and managers in 68 industrial pilot projects, AGILE demonstrated up to 70% reductions in total R&D lead time and costs.
The Silver Achievement Award was presented by the Information Technology for European Advancement (ITEA) Board. ITEA brings together partners from large companies, Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), research institutes and universities in strategic projects. Organizations that participate in ITEA share a vision of how to disseminate digital software technology to improve European competitiveness. Projects build crucial middleware, prepare common standards and establish solid technology platforms, laying the foundation for the next generation of products, systems, appliances and services. This huge effort is supported by close co-operation between European national public authorities, ITEA founding companies, SMEs and start-ups, universities and research institutes.
The ITEA Board granted the Silver Achievement Award 2007 to the AGILE project for its high-level technical merits based on true European collaboration. Furthermore, the award valued the project’s significant results and the promotion of the program and its goals.
Besides Barco’s avionics division, Belgian laureates also include software engineering company E2S and the DistriNet research group, which is part of the Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Through this consortium, it was proven that agile methods can be incorporated in the development process of companies dealing with very stringent life-critical requirements. Within Barco’s avionics division, the implementation of this improved methodology in several trials and pilot projects has already shown a significantly lower development cost and a faster time to market for its products.
The work done within the AGILE project was supported by IWT-Vlaanderen, which is the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders. IWT-Vlaanderen comes under the auspices of the Minister of Science and Innovation. As a regional public institution, it stimulates innovation through research and development and through the dissemination of technological know-how in Flanders.
As a follow-on of the project, the AGILE project members are seeking an opportunity to establish an Embedded Agile Institute in Europe to foster adoption of agile processes in European software intensive companies. As a service, AGILE members have launched an interactive “House of Agile” web portal (http://www.houseofagile.org/) to propagate their results beyond the consortium. House of Agile is a collaborative wiki-style solution that enables the community to update the contents.
More information about AGILE can be found on the AGILE project site (http://www.agile-itea.org/) and the ITEA website (http://www.itea-office.org/).
About Barco
Barco, a global technology company headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
For fiscal year 2005, Barco posted net sales of euro 712.0 million.
Barco’s ordinary shares are listed on the Brussels/Euronext stock exchange. Barco is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company. Share information may be accessed on Bloomberg under the symbol BAR BB and on Reuters under BARBt.BR.
About E2S
E2S (www.e2s.be) is a Belgian software engineering company based in Gent since 1984. It delivers outstanding information technology and security solutions and helps its customers to improve their software production processes. E2S provides software technology and expertise via a range of high quality products and services, to a variety of clients in demanding technological application areas. Experience with applying software engineering methods, techniques and technology constitute the core of the company.
About K.U.Leuven, Department of Computer Science, DistriNet
K.U.Leuven's Department of Computer Science, and more specifically its research group 'Distributed Systems and Computer Networks' (DistriNet, http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/cwis/research/distrinet) is a well-known centre of expertise in Software Technology. It clusters research & development in diverse areas, such as Real-Time Embedded and Ubiquitous Systems, Security, Networking, Language Technology and Middleware, Agent Systems, and Application Integration. The available skills cover both fundamental know how as well as expertise in application driven projects. The domain of innovation and expertise of DistriNet is the architecture, composition and development of open, distributed, flexible and dynamic object-oriented and component-based platforms for advanced software systems, using state-of-the-art software technology. The research is always application driven and is often conducted in close collaboration with industry.
