NII Open Forum
NII Open Forum 2014 - 'Thinking and Creating Together a Future of Academic Information Infrastructure' was held in Tokyo on May 29 2014.
Introduction
Opening Remark
by Masaru Kitsuregawa, Director General, NII
To mark the opening of the Open House 2014, Prof. Kitsuregawa, Director General of NII, welcomed the audience and gave an overview of the purposes of the forum and the future direction of NII.
The theme of the forum was ‘Thinking and Creating Together a Future of Academic Information Infrastructure’. Kitsuregawa emphasised that, in order to advance the future of academic information infrastructure, it is essential to listen to the voices of users and reflect these in the future architecture of NII as a whole. Based on this idea, the forum set out to discuss openly SINET 5. SINET 5 is the next academic information network, which combines not only the network but also clouds, security, authentication, contents infrastructure, etc. SINET5 is due to be launched in 22 months time.
Kitsuregawa introduced the concept of ‘Collapetition’ (‘collaboration’ and ‘competition’). He argued that real collaboration can only be achieved through competition, and that it is NII’s mission to create such an environment. This is so that healthy competition is encouraged among those who engage in the creation of the future academic information infrastructure. In order to realise such a vision, it is crucial that the future direction of NII is formed through thinking and creating together with users and those who are involved.
The architecture of SINET 5 will reflect and adopt the needs of a cloud computing era. While everything is shifting to the cloud, it is important that NII understands what is expected of their services and offers an environment that is both economical and user-friendly.
Click the program.
