Overview of the ICT ecosystemof Wallonia

ir. Zaccone CarmeloTechnology Intelligence AnalystICT Sector Promotion

Supporting digital innovationMarshall Plan 4.0. Priority measures for the economic redeployment of Wallonia :

• www.wallonie.be/fr/plan-marshall,• is structured around 5 axis,• 5th AXIS: Supporting digital innovation.

Entering the age of the fourth industrial revolution :• Cloud, Big Data analytics, Industrial IoT, real time processing.• Government is building a transitional digital integrated plan.• Objective is to boost the digital economy of Wallonia :

• digital goods-producing industries,• digital services market industries,• enhancing the “digital culture” from business to citizen

and particularly the young generation.

A digital vision for Wallonia• Launch by the Walloon Minister for the Economy and Digital

of a consultation process for the development of the 4-year digital Regional Plan to be presented to government in the fall 2015. The process was based on 13 thematic working groups and a crowdsourced website.

• A Digital Council has been created. It is composed of people coming from the ICT sector or in charge of the digital transformation in specific sectors in Wallonia (education, health, publics services, …).

• The “Agence du Numérique” is in charge of the organization of a open, collective and crowdsourced process that must identify technological and political priorities for the Walloon Government.

Networks

Wallonia has excellent coverage in terms of broadband networks (fixed and wireless).

• The public fiber network, managed by the Sofico. This network is open to public & private partnerships. It covers all major cities and areas of Wallonia.

• The Belnet network, which provides broadband coverage for universities, colleges and publics institutions.

• The fixed and mobile networks of 4 major telecoms operators (Proximus, Mobistar, Base and VOO). Several other alternative operators are also active. Mobile 3G covers most areas of Wallonia. 4G is available in the major cities.

SupportWallonia has established several institutions and initiatives whose mission is the development of ICT in all sectors of the society (public services, businesses, citizens, ...). For example :

• the AdN whose primary goal is the development and promotion of ICT;

• 2 Clusters (ICT & TWIST) to boost the ICT sector;• the CETIC & MULTITEL (centers of excellence in the ICT field);• the Microsoft Innovation Center;• the WSL (incubator for engineering sciences)

ICT companies are represented by Agoria (national federation). Wallonia also benefits from the action of many private initiatives (BetaGroup, Nest Up, Startups.be, LeanSquare, FeWeb, Rue du Web, Café numérique, …). They show the dynamism of the ICT sector.

Support

The support provided for the ICT sector and the ICT uses in Wallonia is also reflected by concrete actions and initiatives :

• Professional forums on ICT (mobile, SmartCities, e-health, ...) technologies and advanced ICT use in business (e-commerce, ...). Most of these forums are public / private partnerships.

• Missions and presences abroad : based on calls for proposalsor technological and economic opportunities(for example MWC or NAB).

• Clustering.• Specific calls for proposals (Boost Up, Nest Up, Hackathon Open

Data, …).

Education & trainingWallonia have a wide network of institutions in charge of ICT education and training.

• Several universities and colleges. Many offer high-level training in ICT : networks, security, programming, multimedia, e-commerce, web, Internet governance, ... .

• In the region of Liege and Tournai, for example, there are now integrated "e-campus" covering all the skills needed by companies active on the Web.

• Four training centers specialized in ICT (Technofutur TIC, Technocité, Technifutur and Technobel). For companies, this is an opportunity to offer ICT training or upgrade to its personnel , and for people looking for a job, this is a chance to acquire ICT skills.

A smart regionCreative Wallonia is a framework program that places creativity and innovation in the center of the Walloon project. Lots of initiatives are related to ICT.

• CoWallonia is the name of the network of 8 coworking centers. There is also several Smart Work Centers.

• Wallonia is one of the 2 European regions recently elected “European Creative District”.

• The Walloon Government is also working on a specific plan to transform 5 Walloon cities into smartcities. Futurocité is the name of a public/private initiative to develop projects related to urban intelligence.

Source : www.awt.be/web/cow & www.cowallonia.be & www.creativewallonia.be

The ICT sector

The Walloon ICT sector is composed of two main types of actors :

• small entities, particularly active in the areas of retail, consulting, training and distribution and installation of goods and services. Their target markets are mainly business services (including ICT sector), the general public and retail trade;

• +/- 250 companies with high added value whose main activity is often in the consulting and software. Their target areas are: business services, financial services, utilities, distribution, healthcare and industry.

Source : www.awt.be/barometre

The ICT sector

The Walloon ICT players are particularly aware of the importance of innovation. 70% are involved in R&D projects and 26% believe that innovation is essential to their survival.

The Walloon ICT sector is highly open to international, (particularly companies with a high added value).

• 35% have at least one establishment abroad.• 79% are exporters. • 62% say they want to expand their export activities in two

years.

Walloon ICT excellence'sBroadband. Amongst the most connected countries :

• xDSL pioneer, wireless coverage (4G, WiFi) throughdifferent Service Providers.

• Fiber Optic To The Building (FTTB) is a reality for > 1,500 SMEs, 44 fully connected business parks.

• 8 Smartcities : Urban WiFi “Digital Cities” : Liège, Mons, Bastogne, Namur, Tournai, Ottignies/Louvain-la-Neuve, Charleroi, Spa-Francorchamps.

Micro-Technologies, Nanotech, Mecatronic : MITECH Cluster (Micro-Technologies for Intelligent Manufacturing & Products).Centers of competences : technical platforms endowed with modern facilities made available to training agencies and companies (Technifutur, Technocité , Technofutur3, Techno.bel, Forem Formation).

Wallonia, a large ICT footprint (1)

• 25% of the Walloon ICT ecosystem develops software (ERP, CRM, Multimedia & web tools, Industrial or scientific applications, Office suites, workflow, Networking, security, system, educational software, e-learning tools, Supply Chain Management, e-commerce, BI, IoT, Smartcities, M2M, Mobile apps).

• BioTech (Genomic, Proteomic, Metabolomic, Oligonucleotides design , Database Design, Clinical research).

• Radio transmission / Telecom (Near Field Communication, Radio Frequency ID, Ultra Narrow Band, Magnetic Identification, Optical networking).

• E-health (Medical imagery, Clinical Study, Electronic health records, Medical IT, Tele medicine, ePrescribing, m-Health).

67 SMEs

Wallonia, a large ICT footprint (2)

• Mobile (Operating System development, Customer Relation Management, Workforces, Advertisement, Machine-To-Machine, Location Based Services).

• IPtel, Unified Communication (Voice over IP, Unified Communication, Fixe Mobile Convergence, Fixe Mobile Convergence, Open Source).

• Big Data (Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Visualization Platform, Real Time Processing).

• Immersive Technologies (Natural User Interface, Gesture recognition, Virtual World, Industrial Process Simulation).

Digital Clusters in Wallonia INFOPOLE (ICT) TWIST (MEDIA)

The network that gathers and unites professionals of ICT to promote business and innovation through partnership.

The network consists of • 148 members.• 130 SMEs.• 18 large companies.

Turnover +- 1.38 Billion €

The network that gathers and unites professionals of technology companies, universities, research centers, distributors, producers, professional associations of the media industry.

The network consists of • over 100 members (80%SMEs).• 5 TV Channels.• 5 universities & Research Centers.• 2 investment funds.• 5.000 direct jobs and 2.000 indirect

jobs Turnover +- 1 Billion €

INFOPOLE spheres

Serious Games

IoT Datacenter

Transmedia Security

Web

Cinema/TV Animations

Broadcast Technologies

New Media (Internet, Mobile, Social Media, Video Games)

TWIST spheres

Strategic focus on :• Digitalisation & Digital Archiving• Motion Capture / Immersive Technologies• Video Games / Serious Game• Second Screen / Transmedia• 2D and 3D imaging

Investment Funds

Tier 3+ Datacenter availability

• ir. Carmelo Zaccone | carmelo.zaccone@aei.be• @carmelo• 0032 475 586.782• linkedin.com/in/zaccone• www.awt.be

Avenue Prince de Liège, 133 B-5100 JambesTél.: 0032 (0)81 77 80 80 | info@digitalwallonia.be

www.twitter.com/digitalwallonia www.facebook.com/digitalwallonia

Get in touch with AdN