Tokyo, Japan & Heidelberg, Germany, January 13, 2017 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced that NEC Laboratories Europe is one of five members of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) who have initiated a new ETSI Industry Specification Group on Context Information Management (ISG CIM), together with the Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) organization.

The ISG CIM will specify open standards for the context information management layer, running 'on top' of IoT platforms, enabling implementation of context-aware behavior in smart applications. This context information management layer accesses and updates information coming from different sources (IoT networks and information systems) that comprise the semantics of information, including data source, time of validity, ownership and many more. This will dramatically extend the interoperability of applications, helping smart cities to integrate their existing services and enable new third-party services.

Cities are striving to use digital services to advance the quality of life of their residents, the efficiency of their operations, the growth of their economies and to increase their sustainability. At the moment, telecommunication systems, city infrastructure databases, car traffic management systems, and new Internet of Things (IoT) solutions all have their own specifications, and smart cities are held back by lack of interoperability for exchange of information between these platforms - which the new ISG CIM aims to overcome.
A focus of the group will be collaboration with other standardisation activities in related areas, including ETSI TC SmartM2M and ETSI PP oneM2M. Groups such as EIP-SCC, W3C or ITU-T, and open source IoT software platforms such as FIWARE and OM2M will be closely consulted. The goal is to interoperate and to re-use existing work as much as possible. The ISG CIM work is intended to align with the EU's standardisation policies for the Digital Single Market.

The five ETSI members of the new ISG CIM are Easy Global Market, imec, NEC, Orange and Telefonica. Beyond the initial focus of smart cities, the approach will be transferable to other applications, such as smart agriculture and smart industry.

Organisations from all areas are welcome to join the ISG CIM initiative: non-ETSI as well as ETSI members, including research organisations, software houses and system integrators, SMEs, industrial partners, city groups and other stakeholders.

The official ISG CIM Terms of Reference is available at https://portal.etsi.org/tb.aspx?tbid=854&SubTB=854 and a call for participation to the first ISG CIM General Meeting on 9-10 February at ETSI headquarters in Sophia Antipolis, France, has been issued to ETSI Members. Please send enquiries to the convenor of the first ISG CIM meeting, Dr. Lindsay Frost (NEC Laboratories Europe, frost@neclab.eu).

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About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.

About NEC Laboratories Europe
NEC Europe Ltd. established NEC Laboratories Europe in 1994. The Laboratories are located in Heidelberg, Germany and South Ruislip, UK. NEC Laboratories are conducting research and development on cutting-edge ICT technologies, in particular Future Internet, next generation fixed and mobile networks, the Internet-of-Things, Intelligent Transportation Systems, multimedia, security and service saving energy and protecting our environment. Special emphasis is placed on solutions meeting the needs of NEC's European customers. For additional information, please visit the NEC Laboratories Europe home page at:
http://uk.nec.com/en_GB/emea/about/neclab_eu/

NEC Corporation published this content on 13 January 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
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