Kroes: DANTE ‘key’ in societal challenges
Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission with responsibility for the Digital Agenda, has congratulated the work of DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe) in helping to tackle societal challenges.
Commenting on DANTE’s contribution of two decades of networking excellence to the global research and education community, Kroes said: “I give my full congratulations to DANTE for 20 years of networking excellence. DANTE’s work is essential to the European and global research community. World-class internet networks, through GÉANT and the regional networks it manages, is fundamental to realising the EU’s 2020 vision for the European Research Area and key to helping us tackle societal challenges such as food and energy security, health and aging, and environmental protection.
“DANTE has my full support and well wishes to continue its innovative journey in support of research and education, across Europe and beyond,” she added. Many of the societal challenges outlined by Kroes will also receive research funding under the EU’s next research and innovation framework programme, Horizon 2020.
DANTE was founded in 1993 to provide a high-speed internet network for the European research community. It has since created and managed four consecutive generations of this network and today, the world-class GÉANT network is used by the Commission as a blueprint for funding similar networks all over the world.
Adding their thoughts, Niels Hersoug and Matthew Scott, Joint DANTE General Managers, said: “Twenty years ago we could never have dreamed that research and education networking would grow to the extent it has today. By enabling people to work together, regardless of location, and to effortlessly exchange huge volumes of data, DANTE’s work is advancing innovation, economic development and productivity in ways that will benefit us all. Be it through advances in climate research, medical developments, food production or high-energy physics; they all rely on the high-speed networks of DANTE and its partners.”
