INITIATE workshop: How to engage with future internet testbeds

On Wednesday 20 May 2020, Digital Catapult will host the first virtual INITIATE workshop, providing technology companies and startups the opportunity to meet academic partners and explore how future internet technologies can enable the development of new products and services.

About the INITIATE project:

INITIATE provides a unique distributed future internet testbed facility designed to support large-scale and complex research and product development by network and application innovators.

The project provides access to five of the leading networking labs across the UK, interconnecting operational, state-of-the-art laboratories at the Universities of Bristol, Lancaster, Edinburgh and King’s College London as well as Digital Catapult, London. By combining the expertise of UK research and innovation communities it is ready to support the increasingly complex at scale experimentation required for future Internet research.

About the online workshop

The online workshop will focus on how startups and larger technology companies can collaborate with the specialist INITIATE distributed testbed.

The event will be split into two sessions:

In the morning session, INITIATE partners and Digital Catapult will present the project, the testbeds’ capabilities and the INITIATE portal.

In the afternoon session, Digital Catapult will present use cases and breakout sessions, where participants will be assigned into groups, to discuss their challenges and how the testbed can support.

The theme-based discussions, in separate virtual rooms, will focus on the following topics:

• (Industrial) IoT
• Immersive (AR/VR/XR)
• Communications/networking
• Future research/ artificial intelligence
• Other (including security)

Why attend?

During the morning session, attendees will learn about the testbed capabilities, and how to take advantage of some of the most advanced connected technologies.

In the afternoon sessions, attendees will be able to directly discuss their unique requirements and challenges. The breakout sessions will allow engagement with experts in 5G and future networks research from partnering universities, creating collaborative relationships for experimentation and shared learnings between industry and academia.

Agenda

Morning session
09:30 – Introduction and welcoming note
09:45 – INITIATE project overview
10:00 – Presentations by the project partners on testbed capabilities (Part A)
10:20 – Coffee Break
10:30 – Presentations by the project partners on testbed capabilities (Part B)
11:00 – Q&A on the testbed capabilities
11:10 – The INITIATE portal
11:25 – Introduction to the afternoon session
12:00 – Break

Afternoon session
13:00 – What it means to engage with the INITIATE testbed?
13:15 – Theme based discussions based on individual challenges and how can the testbed help
14:15 – Feedback from the meetings
14:30 – Closing remarks

Who should attend?

The event has been designed for technology companies, startups and academic partners that will benefit from access to future networks technologies facilities, partners and experts from across the UK.

Future networks technologies discussed at this event, and that form part of the INITIATE project, include:

• optical networks
• wireless/RF communications
• internet of things (IoT)
• software defined networking (SDN)
• network function virtualisation (NFV)
• cloud computing

Startups already operating in these areas or working in a field that could benefit from these technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, IoT and artificial intelligence, are welcome to join and explore how to benefit from future networks technologies.