Our student, Péter Pálos received Best Student Paper Award from the Committee of 44th International Conference on Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP). The honored paper titled “ReLight-WCTM: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approach for Traffic Light Control within a Realistic Traffic Simulation” more…

Head of MEDIANETS, dr. Vilmos Simon served as an invited speaker at the most important and prestigious event for Hungary’s information society, the Parliament of the Information Society. This event is also the most important venue for representing the interests of non-governmental participants. With the previous years’ successful conferences in mind, a brand new event type was created: the non-governmental, professional Parliamentary forum. True to the spirit of the principle of representation, the aim was to provide a venue where the people from all parts of the industry can present their views to the key decision makers regarding the information society. This event is the most important meeting point for public administration, the public, and the ICT industry, while also serving as the venue for the annual report of ICT decision makers.

PhD students from MEDIANETS Labs earned prizes at the National Scientific Students’ Associations Conference. Norbert Varga get the 2nd prize for his research work in the FP7-ICT CONCERTO (supervisor László Bokor), while András Kőkuti get a special prize for his research work in the FIRST project (supervisor Vilmos Simon).

The representatives of MEDIANETS Lab, Csaba Szabó, Vilmos Simon, Árpád Huszák and László Bokor gave several presentations about their most recent research activities during the Creating Connections – Building Bridges Workshop at the Technical University of Kosice in Slovakia (March 27, 2015). They also provided an update on the actions and opportunities of the EIT ICT Labs Budapest Associate Partner Group. The “Creating Connections – Building Bridges” initiative fosters knowledge transfer between the two universities and helps cooperation aiming to tackle the challenges of starting H2020 projects and involvement to ICT Labs activities.

Vilmos Simon received his PhD from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) in 2009 and is currently an associate professor at the Department of Networked Systems and Services and Head of the Multimedia Networks and Services Laboratory. His research interests include self-organizing mobile networks, mobile crowdsensing, flocking optimization in self-organized networks, Internet of Things. He participated in several research projects including the EU ICST-FET FP6 BIONETS where he also acted as a WP leader. He published 40+ papers in international journals and conferences, and acts as a reviewer or organizer for numerous scientific conferences. He serves as a president of the Telecommunications Section in the Scientific Association for Infocommunications Hungary.

Over 80 representatives of more than 10 countries took part at the first Danube Innovation Summit in Budapest, on the 4-5^th of December, 2014. The main objective of the conference was to provide a forum for all stakeholders of the innovation eco-system in Danube region, including the industrial, academic, and governmental sectors. Participants represented R&D institutions, innovative SMEs, and European and regional research and innovation programs and projects.

The conference was opened by the welcome speech of Prof. László Vajta, Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of BME, followed by the presentation of Prof. Zoltán Horváth, Director of the Budapest Associate Partners Group of ICT Labs, the Knowledge and Innovation Community established by EIT, the European Innovation and Technology Institute. The program continued with presentations by the Hungarian National Innovation Office, the Ministry of Human Capacities, FILAB Association and the Mobility and Multimedia Cluster. Presentations by representatives of international organization, including EIT ICT Labs, Digital Factory, Demola Open Innovation Platform and Fraunhofer Foundation were received with great interest. There were interesting presentations about European programs and projects, including the current H2020 opportunities, the FIWARE accelerator, and EUREKAEurostart. The web platform, developed by the SEETechnology project, was also presented, that connects innovative enterprises, projects and R&D institutions in the South-East European region.

The many positive feedbacks, received from the participants after the event, support the organizers’ intention to continue this initiative, not only with organizing the second Summit in 2015, but also with creating a permanent framework for cooperation in the Danube region, the Danube Innovation Community.

Our colleague, Vilmos Simon has presented at the 1.Hungarian Future Internet Conference (as part of the Innotrends Hungary 2014 international conference and exhibition) the results of the FIRST (Future Internet Research, Services, Technology) national R&D project, focusing on the Future Internet Architectures area.