During her speech at High Level eHealth Conference on Monday, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, noted: “There’s a huge potential in eHealth: To help people stay active and independent for longer. To offer better public services at less cost. But also to stimulate a strong EU market that could serve our citizens – and compete globally.”

At AT&T, we believe technology and smart networks can ultimately create a healthier world.  As we move to the mobile life era – where advanced communications connect virtually everything through LTE and the Cloud – there’s tremendous potential to transform the healthcare ecosystem and make everything from record keeping, billing and payment to diagnosis, monitoring and on-going care faster and more efficient.

We’re also reimagining how consumers manage their healthcare. Realizing the usefulness of a proactive lifestyle monitor, AT&T Labs researchers have prototyped Virtual Companion, a personal assistant that anticipates users’ needs. Virtual Companion is able to provide suggestions to improve your life in many different dimensions like well-being, work, productivity, social and more. For example, you can build a diary of what you eat and the app will match your daily calorie intake with your activity level as measured by the device’s sensors. Currently, the Virtual Companion app is moving into trials in the U.S. To learn more about the app, check out the video below.

In 2011, we appointed Geeta Nayyar, M.D., M.B.A. as AT&T’s first Chief Medical Information Officer. Dr. Nayyar provides industry expertise in evidence-based medicine, health outcomes, disease management and wellness. She also helps translate healthcare issues and technology implications with a wide range of stakeholders including physicians, patients, providers, policymakers and consumers. Dr. Nayyar complements AT&T’s deep bench of healthcare industry experts focused on delivering advanced IT solutions to healthcare industry businesses in the U.S.

Of course, to make possible a mobile-centric world of anywhere-to-everywhere connectivity, it’s critical that regulations don’t struggle to play catch-up with new technologies, but actively pave the way for them. Today’s regulations should meet consumer needs, assure consumer protection, reflect the modern marketplace, and be applied in a competitive, technologically neutral fashion while at the same time continuing to spur economic growth and development. Connected devices will need to work seamlessly with each other across national boundaries, so policies will need to be flexible enough to enable a range of commercial and technological solutions.

Continued investment in 21st century next-generation networks and innovations requires a 21st century regulatory framework. Given the rapid evolution of technology, it is critical we set out high-level principles that can adapt with the pace of technology and keep us connected.

Para ayudar a fortalecer las capacidades de las organizaciones humanitarias en situaciones de crisis y salvar vidas, la TSF organizó una sesión de entrenamiento la semana pasada en Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) en Managua, Nicaragua, gracias al apoyo financiero de la Ayuda Humanitaria de la Comisión Europea y el Departamento de Protección Civil (ECHO). Desde 1992, la Comisión ha proporcionado miles de millones de euros para proyectos humanitarios en más de 140 países, la financiación de alivio a millones de víctimas de catástrofes fuera de la Unión Europea.

Cursos de formación de la TSF se celebran en diferentes lugares en el 2013 para ayudar a mejorar la coordinación y la capacidad de los actores de emergencia. Los participantes reciben capacitación en materia de despliegue de emergencia de las tecnologías modernas de telecomunicaciones para establecer una conexión a internet rápida y fiable y las conexiones telefónicas. Al mismo tiempo se les enseña como estar preparados para emergencias y descubrir las soluciones de TIC, incluyendo la estructura y la metodología de las Naciones Unidas. La primera reunión se celebró en Bangkok en el mes del marzo. La sesión de esta semana en Managua incluye 25 representantes de 14 organizaciones humanitarias desde la América Latina que participan en la respuesta rápida durante emergencia. Capacitaciones adicionales se llevarán a cabo en Dakar y Nairobi en los próximos meses.

En el “hiperconectado” mundo de hoy, a menudo damos por hecho que podemos recoger un smartphone o un tablet y conectar con nuestros amigos, familiares y colegas – no importa dónde se encuentren en el mundo, y casi no importa donde estamos nosotros. Pero para las personas que se encuentran en situaciones desesperadas provocadas por desastres naturales o catástrofes de origen humano, la capacidad de conectarse a una red, literalmente, puede ser una cuestión de vida o muerte. Así que es bueno saber que, en medio de la catástrofe y el caos, la TSF probablemente estará ahí para proporcionar la conectividad vital.

La Unión Europea es el mayor donante mundial de fondos para operaciones de ayuda humanitaria y felicitamos al ECHO para reconocer el valor de la TSF y el apoyo a sus esfuerzos. Y, felicitamos la TSF para continuar fortaleciendo nuestras comunidades y mantenernos conectados.

La TSF ejecuta un programa de desarrollo de capacidad para las ONGs en tres continentes, sin dejar de llevar a cabo misiones de emergencia, con el apoyo de compañías como AT&T.

To help strengthen the skills of humanitarian organizations in crisis situations and save lives, TSF organized a training session last week on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Managua, Nicaragua, thanks to the financial support of the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department (ECHO). Since 1992, the Commission has provided billions of euros for humanitarian projects in more than 140 countries, funding relief to millions of victims of disasters outside the European Union.

TSF training courses are being held in various locations in 2013 to help improve the coordination and competence of emergency actors. Participants are provided training on emergency deployment of modern telecommunications technologies to establish fast and reliable Internet and phone connections and taught to be prepared for emergencies and discover ICT solutions, including the structure and methodology of the United Nations. The first session was held in Bangkok in March. This week’s session in Managua included 25 representatives from 14 Latin America humanitarian organizations that are involved in emergency response. Additional trainings will be held in Dakar and Nairobi in the coming months.

In today’s “hyper-connected” world, we often take it for granted that we can pick up a smartphone or tablet computer and connect to our friends, family and colleagues – no matter where they are in the world, and almost no matter where we are. But for people who find themselves in desperate situations caused by natural disasters or man-made catastrophes, the ability to connect to a network can literally be a matter of life and death. So it’s good to know that, in the midst of disaster and chaos, TSF will likely be there to provide that vital connectivity.

The European Union is the world’s largest provider of funds for humanitarian aid operations and we commend ECHO for recognizing the value of TSF and supporting their efforts. And, we commend TSF for continuing to strengthen our communities and keep us connected.

TSF runs a capacity building programme for NGOs on three continents, while continuing to conduct emergency missions with support from companies like AT&T.

Last week, Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs, participated in an event in Washington, D.C. with José María Aznár López, former Prime Minister of Spain, to discuss the importance of the TTIP. Listening to the remarks of Prime Minister Aznar was very enlightening about what we can achieve. It’s clear that many regulations in both the U.S. and the EU have become outmoded, and we should join forces to promote a healthy regulatory climate for communications technology and services. Similar messages also came from the panelists: Jaime Garcia-Legaz Ponce, Secretary of State for Commerce of Spain; Ambassador Miriam Sapiro, Deputy U.S.Trade Representative; Myron Brilliant, Executive Vice President and Head of International Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and former U.S. Congressman Cliff Stearns. The panel was moderated by Joshua Bolten, former White House Chief of Staff and Budget Director in the George W. Bush Administration.

Working together on ambitious, common objectives will only strengthen our closely interrelated economic future. The experience of solving hard problems – as I know we can – will bring us even closer than we are today. Because our industry is global in nature, we need some level of interoperability of rules across national boundaries that an agreement could deliver. This is true within the EU and also true between the EU and the U.S.  A high standard agreement, one that resolves difficult issues, can become the gold standard to which other countries will rise if they want to participate fully in the digital economy. Jaime Garcia-Legaz insisted on the concept of “mutual recognition” for existing legislation as a starting base, and I think that he is right.

Another important point is that an EU-U.S. agreement will not be about picking low-hanging fruit such as fundamental market access because, when it comes to telecommunications, this fruit has already been picked. This negotiation will be about resolving more challenging issues. And the good news is we already have a roadmap in place for the ICT sector.  In 2011, the U.S. and EU developed a set of non-binding trade-related principles for ICT services that provide guideposts for digital economy issues. These have been negotiated and agreed as key concerns, so they are a logical starting point.

In short, with an eye toward our interconnected future as global economic leaders, we can align in our efforts to modernize the regulatory environment for communications technology. We look forward to our continued work together to set the path to recovery of jobs and economic growth.

During our discussions, many students noted their concerns about the lack of opportunities to practice real-life work experiences at university labs and were searching for ways to include this as part of their education. As a result, our employees started a pilot project called “AT&T Training Centre” to provide hands-on experiences for students in cooperation with Brno Technology University, one of the Czech Republic’s leading research and teaching institutions. The students’ mentors are experienced, certified engineers that provide support to AT&T customers.

Currently, selected students can choose from two programs: Switching and Routing or Network Security. The programs are mainly focused on practicing the most common customer issues, including troubleshooting situations AT&T engineers face on a daily basis. The issues are simulated in a lab environment and students have the opportunity to increase their theoretical knowledge base as well as perform real troubleshooting of issues in the lab environment.

A job fair organized by our team at Brno Technology University in April brought nearly 80 candidates interested in available positions at AT&T – thanks in part to the experiences shared by participants in the AT&T Training Centre. We’re already seeing great results – some students have found employment and others are for searching available jobs at AT&T with the help of our staffing team.

AT&T is also participating in the Czech Invest program, through which we are working with the Czech government to promote the employment and training of high-skilled jobs at the Brno facility. The Czech Republic welcomes investment, which has allowed us to continue our growth in the region and to create new opportunities for people wanting to work within a global organization.  We look forward to continuing to work with Brno students to help them learn about careers at AT&T and understand the educational and workforce skills they will need to succeed on the job.

AT&T Brno Employees and Students at Job Fair

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak about AT&T’s efforts to encourage innovation at an event hosted by the Centre for European Policy Studies. AT&T has eight Nobel prizes in its heritage and our company was borne out of and has a long tradition of innovation. That’s why we have taken the lead — reaching out to entrepreneurs, application developers and others outside our company and collaborating with them to bring innovation onto our network faster. We’ve planted several seeds that have taken root to transform our approach to innovation.

AT&T Labs: The Bell Systems’ founders knew that for technology to succeed, they needed a sustained research and development organization dedicated to fostering continued growth through innovation. AT&T Bell Labs, first known as Bell Telephone Laboratories, was created in 1925 to answer the call and meet the needs of the future. Today at AT&T Labs, 1,300 scientists and engineers are envisioning a world in which you don’t have to carry your wallet because your purchases and other transactions are secured by the sound of your voice. A world in which you can check into a hotel room on your smartphone, have an electronic room key wirelessly sent to your device and enter the room with a wave of your phone over the door handle.

AT&T Foundry: While AT&T Labs makes big bets that pay off in months, or even years, AT&T Foundry moves quickly on new ideas that come to life in a matter of days or weeks. AT&T Foundry innovation centres in Israel, California, and Texas are home to our collaboration with tech leaders and start-ups to fast-track new apps, platforms and more.

Fast Pitch Sessions: With support from venture capital firms, we’re engaging even more developers and start-ups via “fast pitch” sessions. Think of it as speed dating for entrepreneurs who want to collaborate with AT&T. These sessions have been held from California to India.

Developers Conferences: AT&T hosts competitive events designed to introduce developers to our latest cutting-edge tools to help deploy their own apps. For example, during the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, more than 70 teams entered our 24-hour competition. The winner developed Good Times, a solution that filters incoming phone calls based on the receiver’s mental state, all without any user intervention. Throughout 2012, AT&T held 27 separate Developers Conferences, generating many great ideas, and equally important, encouraging the innovation of hundreds of entrepreneurs.

Innovation Pipeline: Our internal innovation crowdsourcing tool, The Innovation Pipeline, lets AT&T employees’ ideas move from presentation to prototype in just a few months.

So we’re looking across the entire ecosystem — whether it’s researchers in AT&T Labs, innovation coaches in AT&T Foundry, developers in a garage or an employee in an AT&T retail store. We engage all those points of view and creative resources, and we pull it all together to accelerate new solutions.

There is great potential in this industry. Its contributions to society and economic growth are unique. So the challenge for policy makers and for carriers is to get the critical components right for the years ahead.

Today, we celebrate International Girls’ in ICT Day, an initiative backed by International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Member States to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of information and communication technologies (ICT). According to an ITU study, women on average account for 30 per cent of information technology technicians, a mere 15 per cent of ICT managers, and only 11 per cent of IT strategy and planning professionals

Events observing Girls’ in ICT Day are being held across the globe. At the European Parliament, Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General, ITU, and Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner in charge of the Digital Agenda, will participate in an event where both will discuss the importance of encouraging women to enter the ICT workforce.

Women play a vital role in driving innovation at AT&T and we’re working to encourage more minorities and women to enter the STEM field – especially through mentoring programs. Many young women face a lonely road when entering a career anywhere in the STEM fields. Mentoring can change that – dramatically. The AT&T Labs Fellowship Program offers outstanding minority and women PhD candidates fellowships that provide hands-on experiences and face-to-face access to the masters of our labs. Such real-world opportunities have made the Fellowship program one of the most highly rated and successful fellowship programs in the U.S.

Supporting STEM education is also a focus of AT&T Aspire, our signature education initiative to improve high school graduation rates and better prepare students for college and careers. We have a long history of being recognized for our commitment to sustainability because of programs such as Aspire. Just recently, AT&T was honored to receive the news that it was ranked No. 1 in the 2013 annual list of the Top Corporate Citizens by CR Magazine.

At a time when innovation is driven by the ability to know no bounds, it’s important to invest now to ensure a robust and well educated future talent pipeline.

In my work at AT&T, we often get so focused on the future of our company and the communities where we live and work, that we sometimes don’t pause and celebrate the accomplishments of today. AT&T is engaged in some pretty exciting projects, and the thanks for the success of those projects goes to our employees, approximately 240,000-strong, who are utilizing their unique skills and passions to derive shared value for our business and society.

Looking back at over just the past few months, I’m amazed at what we’ve already accomplished working together with some of our partners whose knowledge and expertise we rely on each and every day: we released a study with the Carbon War Room which lays out innovative solutions to reduce the barriers of implementing Machine to Machine technologies and highlights some of the environmental and economic benefits associated with this technology. We joined forces with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to launch cooling tower efficiency pilots to identify best practices for saving millions of gallons of water a year, and we are gearing up to share those practices with other companies so that they too can reduce water use.

In California, we launched Skip the Bag, a program where customers were able to generate a donation to the Nature Conservancy by opting to skip a bag at retail stores. Building on the success of this effort, we’re launching a new campaign through AT&T’s Connect for Good community on Causes.com to raise awareness among consumers nationally about waste reduction.

In February, AT&T teamed up with America’s Promise Alliance (APA) during their Building a Grad Nation Summit to help share the encouraging news that the nation’s high school graduation rate is—for the first time—on pace to reach 90 percent by 2020. This great news was echoed in an op-ed penned by Charlene Lake, Senior Vice President Public Affairs and Chief Sustainability Officer at AT&T, and APA co-founder Alma J. Powell, that drove home the point that in order to continue this trend, businesses, educators and the hundreds of organizations represented at Grad Nation must continue to work together to keep all students—including those most at risk of dropping out—on track to graduate.

When we learned that AT&T was ranked No. 1 on the annual list of the Best Corporate Citizens by CR Magazine, it inspired me to pause and reflect on this great work we’ve already done this year, and most importantly, the people who have spent years furthering AT&T’s sustainability efforts. It also motivated me to focus on the future because while we have made great progress, there is much more work that still needs to be done. So a huge thank you to our employees for their tireless efforts and to CR Magazine for this honor, now it’s time to get back to work!

The 1,300 scientists and engineers at AT&T Labs spend their lives developing new technologies to help people live better and businesses perform better. Research in speech recognition and translation technologies has a long history at AT&T Labs, and through the power of The Innovation Pipeline – AT&T’s employee crowdsourcing program – our researchers have been able to develop the next-generation of AT&T Translator capabilities.

Imagine joining a business presentation where every word spoken in French by the presenter can be translated in near real-time, to English. At the same time, your colleague in Spain is dialled into the same meeting, and he or she’s hearing it in Spanish. It’s now a reality with AT&T Translator. Leveraging the power of the cloud-based AT&T Watson^SM speech engine, AT&T has prototyped near real-time language translation capabilities for AT&T Connect Web conferencing service.

To see how it works, check out this video:

Translation technology breaks down language barriers and offers the promise of seamless communication between people speaking different languages. AT&T Labs researchers expect that translation technologies like these will have a significant impact on a diverse range of industries including tourism, healthcare, and law enforcement.

AT&T Translator currently supports seven languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, German and Italian. As more languages are added, researchers are addressing how to balance latency with accuracy – especially for language pairs with radically different word orders, such as English-Japanese. This technology will increasingly allow the spoken or written words of many languages to be understood in one voice.

There’s no industry that contributes to society and economic growth quite like the communications industry and we should work to accelerate its growth. We need to encourage innovation and ensure our policies and regulatory models are actively paving the way for new technologies such as this one.

Alberto: Given your broad experience of Indian politics and business how is the EU viewed from over there?

James: India is a fascinating emerging economy with a vibrant democracy but it still lacks a robust foreign policy and global view of itself in the world. What this means is that the EU is viewed as a conglomerate of European states and little more. Indians still prefer talking about individual states rather than the Union of European states. Having said this, the lack of a coherent EU foreign policy strategy is partially to blame for this. The reason Indians don’t really have a strong opinion about the EU is that the EU isn’t truly relevant on a global scale for most people.

Alberto: Do you have a sense that Indian businesses see an opportunity to invest in Europe? Do they see the Euro crisis as an opportunity?

James: Absolutely. Indian companies are very keen to enter the European market. Many Indian companies are extremely cash rich and view the current Eurozone economic crisis as a great opportunity to snap up distressed assets. Europe offers the technological expertise that they might not already have back home. However, what is stopping many Indian entrepreneurs and billionaire investors to make a move on Europe is a feeling that they are not truly welcome here. There is a sense – in India – that Europeans don’t want “third world” money to save the old continent. Such attitude frustrates Indian businesses. For this reason, many prefer to invest in the U.S. or other emerging markets. It’s simply easier and they feel more welcome.

Alberto: How different is being a journalist in Brussels to say Rome or Mumbai?

James: It’s hard to compare. The nature of the job in Brussels is very different from the one in Mumbai. Here we spend most of our time covering the institutions and what goes on behind closed doors. In India, I tended to cover more of the so-called “real economy.” Both are interesting and exciting but in different ways. In Brussels, one gets to be in the same room with world leaders. In India, I spent more time travelling and reporting about the ups and downs of Indian companies, emerging entrepreneurs, slum dwellers and terror attacks. As you can see, it’s hard to compare.

Alberto: Not a single Member State appears to be escaping a general democratic malaise as voter interest in politics is seemingly plummeting. As the European elections approach next year what do you think the EU institutions can do to increase voter turnout?

James: There has been a lot of talk about allowing citizens to directly elect the next president of the European Commission. I’m not sure whether this would require a treaty change but, in principle, it could help get common people more interested in what goes on in Brussels. At the moment, Brussels is far from citizens’ everyday lives. Knowing and selecting who will lead them from here would do a lot to bring them closer.

Alberto: Eurocrisis aside what was the biggest EU ‘story’ in 2012 and what do you forecast it will be in 2013?

James: I’m probably biased on this one – as I’m covering the story – but the Data Protection Regulation is likely to be a hot topic for the whole of 2013. It’s a subject that interests everybody, from the users of Facebook and Google to small companies that will be impacted from the EU-wide legislation. Watch this space!

The views and opinions expressed in response to the questions posed in this blog post are those of the interviewed individual in his private capacity and do not necessarily reflect the views of his employer or of AT&T.