Together with IBM Salzburg, we are organising a series of events on the theme of making “Salzburg a smarter city”. The first circle took place on Friday, May 13, 2011, and it focused on innovations in traffic. We had around 35 senior experts from industry, research and the public sector. Here is the homepage of smart(er) Salzburg: http://www.smarter-salzburg.at/.
There is a strong cluster of companies in the region, we had many of them as contributors. For instance Salzburg AG, IBM, Audio Mobil, Skidata or Hale electronic. Additionally, the County of Salzburg and obviously we as Salzburg Research are committed to a smarter Salzburg as well.
May 15th, 2011
Sigi Reich
On behalf of Austria’s ministry of science and research, Technopolis has conducted a study on the impact of EU research initiatives. Accompanying text and the study itself are available on the ERA portal. The main goal of the study was to provide recommendations on the quality and relevance of support services (with respect to FP8).
Some main findings of the study:
- the main motivation for participation in FP7 is money. Researchers participate despite the complexity of the programme, administrative hurdles and low acceptance rates because there are (almost) no alternatives for international research. And there was a trend towards professionalisation (due to the increasing competition).
- FP7 projects support network building and reputation, they also improve know-how and technical skills. (But) radical innovations cannot be expected.
- for universities, the framework programmes are an important platform for supporting young academics
- with respect to additionality, FFG-EIP (European and International Programmes) should focus on newcomers in the “market”
These findings are not completely new – still they are evidence of what one often feels and thinks (anyway). So there is still value in it
March 17th, 2011
Sigi Reich
On voxeu.org I came across this interesting article by Jeremia Dittmar on the growth of cities its relationship with the development of the printed press. The argument basically is: those cities that adopted the printing press had higher growth rates, i.e., a faster growth in population and subsequently a better economic development.
For the current (mega-)trend towards cities (in the 21st century – by 2050 70 % of the world’s population will be living in cities), this could mean that information and communication technology (so to say: the Internet as the successor of the printing press) is the basis for future prosperity. But then: we also now that a creative milieu, the youth of the population, openness towards immigrants/and or new ideas are part of future city development.
The Diffusion of the Movable Type Printing Press in Europe, 1450 – 1500, by Jeremia Dittmar, available on voxeu.org:
Some interesting quotes in the article by Jeremia Dittmar:
- The figure above gives an overview of the adoption of the printing press. Interestingly, the U.K. is sparsely populated, also, it seems that northern Italy is a real hotspot in 1500 (besides the Netherlands).
- the growth argument in the article says, that those cities that adopted the printing press, had an advantage in growth of the population – against the other cities – of 21 points (1500 – 1600).
- the reason for this could be that the diffusion was still difficult (the technology was almost kept proprietary for over a century, books were heavy) and thus the geographic coverage was limited. This in combination with positive spillovers (creative, intelligent, young people were attracted) finally led to growth. More concrete, the availability of books on arithmetic basics was key to trading countries and regions such as Portugal, northern Italy, etc. (in order to calculate exchange rates, profit shares, interest rates, etc.).
February 23rd, 2011
Sigi Reich
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Karl Rehrl and myself have edited an issue in HMD – Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik on Geoweb.
So what is this issue about? Increasingly, we are using the Web to answer questions about the “where”: where is the nearest pub? And what’s the shortest path to it? What activities can I do at my holiday location? These and many other location-based issues are addressed by state-of-the-art Web applications. And this special issue of HMD tells you how to engineer Geoweb applications.
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January 31st, 2011
Sigi Reich
Pavitter Josan and Gökhan Özdemir, both of HTL Salzburg Itzling, are working on a prototype solution for future interactive shop window advertising. Salzburg Research, Salzburg AG and FH Salzburg MMT are supporting the project.
Technically, this is realised with a time of flight camera which recognises movements of people (standing in front of a shopping window) and interpreting them intelligently.
Info in German on the project: see HTL project page
January 19th, 2011
Sigi Reich
The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has announced that the application for a doctoral college in GIScience has been granted. The full title is “Geographic information science. Integrating interdisciplinary concepts and methods”. The coordinator is Thomas Blaschke, congratulations!
The press release (in German) can be found at http://www.fwf.ac.at/de/public_relations/press/pa20101203-2.html.
IMHO this is yet another evidence that Salzburg is a hotspot in GIScience.
December 4th, 2010
Sigi Reich
There is a scientific argument – one might even say “dispute” – in the Information Systems Research Community (Wirtschaftsinformatik in German). The argumentation is driven by the fact that the European (mainly German and Scandinavian) tradition of Information Systems Research argue that IT-systems need to provide a benefit for the users. The American argument – mostly driven by American business schools – is geared more towards the scientifically based description of how IT-systems work and what properties they have (following a behaviouristic approach). One might say that this is targeted towards existing (historic) systems and not towards new, innovative solutions.
The issue from a researchers’ perspective is that – as in most other domains – the leading international journals are American and as they follow the behaviouristic approach it is difficult for European researchers to get their papers accepted. And to pursue a successful academic career it needs papers …
This issue is addressed in a “Memorandum zur gestaltungsorientierten Wirtschaftsinformatik” published by Hubert Österle, Jörg Becker, Ulrich Frank, Thomas Hess, Dimitris Karagiannis, Helmut Krcmar, Peter Loos, Peter Mertens, Andreas Oberweis, Elmar J. Sinz and signed by many others. You can find it at
http://www.dke.at/fileadmin/DKEHP/Repository/Memorandum__GWI_2010-03-08.pdf.
In their memorandum, the authors argue for the following phases/activities in Information Systems Research:
- Analysis: problem description, state of the art, research plan, selection of those factors that are relevant for the problem. Polls, surveys, case studies, interviews, etc. are the methods be used
- Conceptual design: construction of the artefacts folowing established methods, etc.
- Building prototypes, demonstrators, etc.
- Evaluation: checking whether the artefacts meet the objectives, experiments, simulation, field experiments, etc.
- Diffusion: dissemination of results, papers, course books, lectures, demos, spin-offs, etc.
Well worth reading!
November 5th, 2010
Sigi Reich
It’s been 10 commemorable years for “Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft“. And we had a big celebration/party on Oct. 22nd, 2010. With young researchers, many politicians and intermediaries, researchers, customers, and lots of friends. More photos at http://fotos.salzburgresearch.at/v/2010_10Jahre/. The programme of the event, including information on our symposium on the future of RTOs (Research and Technology Organisations) in Europe at http://www.salzburgresearch.at/10jahre.
Thanks to all who have contributed in making Salzburg Research a success story!!! I am looking forward to Salzburg Research 2020!
P.S.: We have a new web-site: see 
and the previous ones at web.archive.org …
October 22nd, 2010
Sigi Reich
Dr. Manfred Reichl (see picture at picasaweb), Investor, Senior Adviser, Board Member and former director for Roland Berger Consulting in Austria, reported at an event organised by ITG Salzburg 2010 on the success factors of startups.
The remaining part of this entry is in German because it does not translate well
Was sind die Erfolgsfaktoren für Startups? Reichl argumentiert mit 7 Begriffen, die aus seiner langjährigen Erfahrung wesentlich sind:
- 380 Hummeln: jede Geschäftsidee kann was werden
- Geist: das meint auch be-geist-ert; es hängt vieles von den involvierten Personen ab. Es braucht Feuer in den Augen und Pfeffer im Hintern
- Zeug: das Zeug dazu. Überzeugt er/sie? Auch: muss das für ihn/sie erfolgreich sein, weil auch die eigene finanzielle Zukunft davon abhängt und/oder zumindest wesentlich beeinflusst wird?
- Hebel: wie schaut der finanzielle Hebel aus? Wie schaut das Ökosystem im Sektor aus? Wie die Partner? Das Netzwerk?
- Gesell: Bezug – auch im Kontext von Salzburg – auf Jedermann. Die Gestalt des “Gesell“, der aber auch der Teufel sein kann … Wie schaut die Gesell-schaft rundherum aus? Ist man bereit für das Thema, für die Idee?
- Frosch: ein Frosch wird niemals dafür stimmen, dass der Teich in dem er lebt, trockengelegt wird. Die Führer der Gesellschaft/Politiker/Beamte werden daher nie das Verwaltungssystem wirklich reformieren.
- Gott in zweierlei Hinsicht. Einmal als Abkürzung für Glück of the Tüchtigen; einmal aber auch als Verweis auf das Gottvertrauen, das man braucht.
October 12th, 2010
Sigi Reich
At ICWE 2010, Martin Gaedke organised a panel on “How to Successfully Teach Web Engineering?“. The panelists where Fabio Casati, Yogesh Deshpande and myself. See the following pictures of the panel:
More photos are available at http://icwe2010.webengineering.org/Conference/photos.aspx.
After a short introduction, we mainly discussed the following two questions: (1) if you would have a chance to study “Web Engineering” today, where would you do that? (2) If you were in a position to hire Web Engineers, where would you require your students from and what profile would you expect?
My personal message I take home from this panel: perhaps we are trying to much too educate “miracle-students”. From my experience at Salzburg Research I know that Web Engineering, i.e., the systematic development of Web applications, is a truly interdisciplinary task. But it is not the people/researchers as single individuals that are of interdisciplinary nature, it is the teams that are interdisciplinary: so I guess we must not aim at establishing curricula that teach everything from Web technologies, via Web science, design, information architecture, etc. That will be too much for one (single) curriculum and also, it will be unfocused and there students would have a hard time to get a job. What we need is a set of complimentary curricula, e.g., technical engineers, information architects, etc.
August 8th, 2010
Sigi Reich
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