e-ScienceTalk at FET11: “Science Beyond Fiction” in Budapest

e-ScienceTalk is on tour again for FET11, the European Future Technologies Conference, billed as Science Beyond Fiction. The programme certainly looks intriguing, with topics from quantum IT to artificial synapses to brain-chip interfaces. I arrived this afternoon to set up the e-ScienceTalk information booth, and the exhibition space was already alive with robots of all shapes and sizes flexing their cybernetic muscles and blinking their multi-coloured LEDs. I had the slightly eerie feeling that digital eyes were following me around the room everywhere I went…

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission will be welcoming us to the event officially tomorrow morning and opening the exhibition. She will also mark the launch of the FET Flagship Pilots. FET Flagships are large-scale research partnerships designed to achieve major scientific and technological breakthroughs in the next 10 years. Neelie Kroes will announce six pilots, that will eventually be whittled down to two winning proposals which will be green-lighted to start in earnest in 2013. We will hear more about each of these pilots at special sessions during the week. Want to know what the next big thing will be to drive science beyond fiction? This could be the space to watch…