And we're off!

The first conference from EGI is officially underway in the beautiful setting of the Beurs van Berlage here in Amsterdam. If you're not here in person it's definitely worth checking out photos of the venue whose original purpose was to function as the stock exchange in the city. As Patrick Aerts from BiG Grid explained to us in the plenary session this morning it was designed by Hedrick Petrus Berlage and built in 1898 – 1903. Today though, it is a mixture of the old and new, as modern glass structures have been added to the original building and it appears to be a great location for EGI's first event.

This morning also saw Kostas Glinos, officially hand over the EC's 25 million euro contribution to the establishment of EGI. As Kostas told us in his talk, EGI is a result of 10 years of EC engagement and 100 million euros of funding. EGI is now an essential e-Infrastructure and expectations are high. Let's hope that all the sessions and discussions at the Technical Forum this week help to achieve this goal!