Friday 31 January 2014

Utrecht Meeting & EU Review


This month the MobiCloud project members met at the offices of project member EsperantoX in Utrecht, Netherlands to discuss progress of the project and plan the main activities for 2014. 


EsperantoXL and MobiCloud also hosted a successful breakfast seminar where the technology and application was demonstrated to a number of interested parties that joined us from across the Netherlands in industries as diverse as recruitment, HR and logistics.

While in Utrecht the consortium members visited the Flora Holland Auction, the largest flower auction site in Europe. About 12.5 billion plants and flowers pass through the auction each year which employs over 4000 people. 


Because the flower industry is seasonal many of these employees are "flexible workers" - people on short-term contracts. EsperantoXL is currently using the MobiCloud platform to develop a solution for Tence, an agency which supplies a large number of these workers. The solution is unusual in that many of its benefits are aimed directly at the end-users and runs on their own personal devices - so cross-platform support and a very easy to use interface are essential.


After the consortium meeting the team then moved on to Brussels, where MobiCloud progress was reviewed with our sponsors at the European Commission. Maria Tsakali, Scientific Officer within the Communications Networks, Content and Technology directorate was responsible for the review. She praised the overall management of the project and the "Good technical work with very good involvement of the end-users." and commented that the consortium was working well together.