FTK History

2012
Change of name into FTK - Research Institute for Telecommunication and Cooperation.
Supervision of the project NUA.NRW: Relaunch of website of the Academy for Nature- and Environment Conservation NRW
Further conducting of the projects EC-Ruhr, RAAS-RFID, Smart Vortex, Aparsen and SCIDIP-ES

2011
FTK developed, designed and conceptualized the website of the information- and telecommunication cluster of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia www.ikt.nrw.de

The EC-Ruhr-Congress “So geht Internet heute” (That’s how the internet works today), took place on 6th of March 2011, marked the highlight within the work of EC-Ruhr. 273 guests and participants took part in this joint event of EC-Ruhr and its regional partners.

Continuation of the projects RAAS-RFID and Smart Vortex

Continuation of APARSEN, a project for digital preservation funded by the European Commission. As an umbrella organization APARSEN links together the research activities of 30 institutions from all over Europe. APARSEN contributes to the integration of both current and future research activities. To achieve this goal, it unites and structures its members’ different activities and creates a common framework for the endeavor.

Continuation of the project SCIDIP-ES: SCIDIP-ES is a EU-funded infrastructure project for digital preservation in the area of e-Science. Its ambition is an upgrade of the CASPAR prototype (another EU–project) that will lead to a scaling and robust e-infrastructure made from components to support digital preservation of all kinds of digital objects.

2011
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dominic Heutelbeck was appointed general manager on March 10, 2010
Media|NRW: Completion of the project media|NRW. From 2005 to 2010 FTK (together with the project partner ecmc) was in charge of the information portal on the media location North Rhine-Westphalia. As virtual contact point media|NRW represented the benefits of North Rhine-Westphalia as innovative region and competently supported all participants.
Operating Broadband NRW (until August 2011): Broadband-Support NRW (first-level, offering information on the Internet) was established because many communities in North Rhine-Westphalia were lacking access to high-capacity broadband.
Despite a comparatively good infrastructure, especially rural areas show insufficient broadband support, which is why economic and social progress are limited on various levels.
Continuation of EC-Ruhr: The EC-Ruhr-Congress “Erfolgreich im Internet” (Being successful on the Internet) was the highlight in a series of events throughout the year. 253 guests and participants took part in this joint event of EC-Ruhr and its regional partners.
RAAS-RFID project: The use of RFID in SMEs is still a problem, as the implementation of this technology goes along with immense endeavor and effort, and furthermore presupposes very specific know-how. Model cases are rare, and essential support for SMEs regarding general information, processing, know-how and RFID-know-how are hard to find in the Rhein-Maas-Nord and Rhein-Waal region. According to experts, there is a significant need for action in regard of economic factors, as SMEs equipped with useful and reasonable RFID-applications definitely will experience improved competitiveness. With regard to this background, this project aims to support SMEs in establishing RFID-competences and implementing projects.
SMART VORTEX: SMART VORTEX is a Large Integrated Project co-financed by the European Union within the Seventh Framework Programme in the field of Content and Semantics. SMART VORTEX is an industrial supported project, assisting enterprises optimizing their business models in order to establish a stronger relationship to the costumer during the life cycle of a product. It gains to transform the classic manufacturer-customer-relationship into a modern partnership inside of a virtual enterprise

2009
On 1st of May 2009 Prof. Dr. Kurt Monse died due to severe illness. He acted as general manager of the FTK – Research Institute for Telecommunication and manager of the North Rhine-Westphalian cluster for information and communication technologies. As a highly regarded expert in the field of ICT in North Rhine-Westphalia and beyond, his contribution to the establishment and enhancement of North Rhine-Westphalia as ICT-location was outstanding. Critically but with great engagement, Monse observed the development of ICT as well as a he promoted ICT-implementation in public and private institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as on national and international levels.
On 12th of July 2009 Prof. Dr. Matthias Hemmje was appointed a member of the FTK’s board.
Clustermanagement IKT.NRW: FTK organized approximately 30 events visited by 1340 participants and guests. The summit conference “Tag der Informations- und Kommunikationswirtschaft Nordrhein-Westfalen” (Information and Communication Day North Rhine-Westphalia) took place on November 16 in the red dot design museum in Essen. Visited by almost 300 participants, this event marked the year’s highlight. Global-wide well-known enterprises, SMEs and regional research institutions came to together discussing the future of North Rhine-Westphalia as leading German ICT-region and getting an overview of the ICT-scenery in North Rhine-Westphalia, recent trends as well as innovative projects. In addition to that, the cluster IKT.NRW participated in various events and presented itself at the CeBIT 2009.
FTK constantly supervised the EC-Ruhr project. The Electronic Commerce Competence Center Ruhr is a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology since 1998. EC-Ruhr offers support in acquiring know-how in the field of electronic business transactions.

2008
From December 2008 to June 2009 FTK developed and issued a market analysis on potentials and demands of ICT-users in the areas of logistics, energy and environmental technologies, health care systems, machinery and plant engineering as well as chemicals and plastics industry in North Rhine-Westphalia.
On behalf of the “Wirtschaftsförderung Metropole Ruhr GmbH”, FTK developed project outlines for the so called “Perspektivwerkstatt” in October 2008. These project outlines were supposed to pick up the great social challenges in almost all social areas, especially in the Rhine/Ruhr region.
On 1st of October 2008 the FTK board changed: Prof. Dr. Firoz Kaderali and Prof. Dr. Horst Strunz transferred from board to advisory committee. They were replaced by Prof. Dr. rer. oec. Heinz-Reiner Treichel as their successor.
Cluster management: Prof. Dr. Kurt Monse was appointed as manager of the cluster for the industrial sector of information and communication technology in North Rhine-Westphalia.
More than 250 people participated in the conference “Breitbandversorgung in NRW – Standortqualität für ländliche Regionen” (Broadband supply in North Rhine-Westphalia – location quality in rural areas). The conference focused on the future of broadband supply in North Rhine-Westphalia along with the significance of this development for districts and municipalities.
Results of continuously conducted ICT-market analyses by FTK were published in „European ICT Manifesto for the Regions“. These research activities were partly performed within in the INTERREG IIIC-project „ESTIIC – Fostering Competitiveness through Innovation Technology and Information Society”.

2007
e|NRW Internet Summit on 22nd of February 2007: 175 leading representatives of the Internet business as well as federal state politicians met in Schloss Bensberg for the fifth “Summit Meeting of e-Business in NRW”. They discussed developments and future perspectives for Internet business as well as the most essential future trends in ICT.
The “Day of RFID-Technology” in the State Parliament NRW on 19th of April 2007: In an extensive lecture program, experts gave insight on the recent development of the technology in the State Parliament in Düsseldorf. They also discussed at a panel discussion which future potential RFID offers for North Rhine-Westphalia and its citizens. The event was completed by an accompanying exhibition.
Traceability and protection against forgery of products and food by means of RFID: In the context of the series of events “NRW in a dialogue: New Media – New Markets”, known experts of the NRW provincial parliament discussed on 4th of June 2007 in Brussels about how wireless technologies can aid in recognizing product plagiarisms and in maintaining the standards in traceability of food.
Smart City Conference NRW on 9th of May 2007: Discussions about strategies, concepts and projects by cities and regions that concentrated on expanding broadband networks and on the associated innovative services and applications for enterprises and citizens were the main focus of the event.
“RFID in NRW – seven fields of action; strategic analysis of potentials for politics and administration”: a strategic analysis of potentials on application areas of RFID technology in the administrative framework was conducted on behalf of the State Chancellery NRW .
Conference “Eating healthier – for sure: Food and RFID” on 25th of October 2007: More than 100 specialists and executives from enterprises and production facilities, research and development institutes, food industry as well as representatives of politics, administration and associations informed on the state-of-the-art, the trends, chances and potential of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the food sector.

EUREGIO Project “RFID-NRW-NL”: The network attempted to assist small and medium businesses in discovering and using the economic advantages of automatic identification of objects by means of RFID.
Practice day RFID security on 12th of December 2007: Technology-integrated data security of RFID systems.

2006
The RFID Support Centre: Community initiative of designated research facilities from NRW supported medium businesses in using RFID based innovations.
RFID-Survey 2006: Moods and growth expectations in the German RFID-sector were monitored (in cooperation with the information platform RFID and the AIM-D e.V.).
A twinning partnership with Latvia: 15 expert missions of several days duration in Riga took place and the report for the aid of the Latvian Department of Commerce in developing a strategy for a boost in E-Commerce.
RFID Best Practice Guide was conducted on behalf of the information platform RFID.
Santander meeting arrangements were made and eight interregional projects for the development of broadband and innovation strategies were launched within the limits of “Breitband NRW” and the Interreg IIC Project “ESTIIC” with partners from Spain and Ireland.
Study Tour "Ubiquitous Communications & Computing": Preparatory talks and exchange of information with leading ICT-enterprises, research facilities and national institutions in South Korea.

2005
e|NRW Internet Summit 2005 on 17th of February 2005: 180 representatives of the Internet business as well as federal state politicians met in Schloss Bensberg for the fourth Summit Meeting of E-Business in NRW.
Launch of the initiative Broadband Ruhr.
FTK successfully applied for the lead in the Project Interreg IIC “Innovation and information society in the participating regions Asturias and Cantabria (both Spain), Southeast-Ireland and North Rhine-Westphalia” for the European Union
In the brochure “Breitbandzugang zum Internet – überall in NRW” (Broadband Internet Connection – Everywhere in NRW), FTK gathered all important pilot projects and background information that could be important in order to obtain a broad-band connection. The target groups were enterprises and other interested parties – especially from areas with low availability in broadband internet connections.

2004
On behalf of the North Rhine-Westphalian government, FTK was assigned with the project management of the initiative “Breitband NRW” (Broadband NRW).
Launch of the research project “Dienstleistungsverkehr in industriellen Wertschöpfungsprozessen” (Providing services in industrial value-added processes).
On 11th of February 2004, the third E|NRW Internet summit took place. 180 leading representatives of Internet business as well as a number of the federal state’s politicians met in Schloss Bensberg for the “Summit meeting of E-Business in NRW” to discuss trends and perspectives for the E-Business in 2005.

2003
The new e|NRW E-Business Outlook 2003 was published.
FTK’s e-Commerce information service ECIN – Electronic Commerce Info Net – developed a number of coaching and qualification services for small and medium-sized businesses.

2002
On 6th of November 2002, the second e|NRW Internet Summit was arranged at Schloss Bensberg. Over 170 public figures of North Rhine-Westphalia’s political and economic society were present.
An eLearning course system for eBusiness was established on the web page of the information service ECIN.
The new e|NRW E-Business Outlook 2002 was published.

2001
The e|NRW-Agenda 2001 “20 Milesones for Internet Business“ was published.
FTK managed the LOG-IT eLogistics-Contest.
Fundamental data on the topic of “E-Government” was obtained in 11 cities and 4 districts of the Ruhr area as well as the cities of Münster and Düsseldorf.

2000
With an online seminar „ECIN-Shopmanager“, ECIN first started its own training opportunities online.
FTK published the e|NRW Masterplan for Internet business.
On behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, FTK started the eLog-Centre.
International Benchmarking of the technology regions Ruhr, New York, Tokio and Madrid on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

1999
Formation of the European E-Commerce Academy.
The first German Electronic Commerce Center in the conversion area “Stadtkrone Ost”, Dortmund was built.
FTK became the coordination centre of the NRW-initiative for science and economy: “Innovation Cluster for New Media”.

1998
Launch of the information service ECIN (Electronic Commerce Info Net).
Advisory tasks in the area of regulation of telecommunications for the North Rhine-Westphalia government were taken over.
On authority of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, FTK became the Electronic Commerce Kompetenzzentrum Ruhr (EC-Ruhr, Electronis Commerce Competence Center). The project was performed in cooperation with the six chambers of industry and commerce in the Ruhr area.

1997
Technical reports in the area of telecommunication that had been continually conducted since 1994 were finalized and published.

1996
FTK GmbH (Limited company) was founded.
The global market models „Globaldaten Telekommunikation“ (Global Data in Telecommuncation) and „Informationstechnologie“ (Information Technology) were developed.
The study „Die Liberalisierung der Telekommunikation in Deutschland“ (The Liberalisation of Telecommunication in Germany) was released.
FTK engaged in the EU Esprit Project „MPEG-4 PC: MPEG-4 System Implementation and Tools for Personal Computers).

1995
FTK was assigned with the project management media.NRW of the new initiative media.NRW by the North Rhine-Westphalia government.

1993
The first FTK office in the Technologiepark Dortmund was opened.

1991
FTK – Research Institute for Telecommunication (Incorporated Society) was founded in cooperation between the Universities of Hagen and Wuppertal by Dr. Firoz Kaderali (Fernuniversität Hagen), Prof. Dr. Horst Strunz (University of Cologne) and Prof. Dr. Reinhard Rock (University of Wuppertal).

A number of tasks were performed for the project executing organization of the Federal State’s initiative TELETECH NRW.