AROUND 30 people from nine European countries will be arriving in Shannon later this week to join their Irish colleagues for the kick off of a £7.5 million European Union telematics project led by Shannon Development.
Called ENCATA (European Network for the Advancement of Telematics in Urban and Rural Areas), the project has 10 main partners - all regional development agencies broadly similar to Shannon Development - and 18 other partners including national telecomproviders and technical companies.
The other Irish partners are Telecom Eireann and the National Microelectronics Application Centre (MAC). The big names from overseas include British Telecom, Swedish telecommunications provider Telia AB - reported to be a possible buyer of a share in Telecom Eireann and Olivetti.
But just what is telematics, and what are this project's practical consequences?
"Telematics is a group name for the technologies of computing, telecommunications and multimedia - in its widest sense - and the interplay that arises from these technologies," says John King from Shannon Development, chairperson of ENCATA's board. "The aim of this project is to cut through the hype and the arcane terminology, to arrive at a realistic picture of what companies really need in terms of telematics education and training and to provide it to them, so that telematics becomes another business tool along, with marketing and accounting.
But first, he warns, a chicken and egg problem must he overcome. He says nobody is absolutely sure what should be done for small and medium sized enterprises in terms of telematics education and training, because many of them don't know enough about telematics to grasp what they need.
Since this is a major EU project, a full time project manager has been appointed David Hogan, who has been with Shannon Airport Marketing until now, and before that in the planning and research function of Shannon Development. He will be dispersing the budget throughout the countries in the scheme.
The project's first phase will be spent in the same way within each region, gathering information from small and medium enterprises on their current and possible uses of telematics, and preparing a regional plan. This means Ireland will be able to benchmark the Shannon region against other regions abroad.
Next comes the more visible stage, when "telematics on wheels" - takes to the road throughout counties Limerick, Clare, North Tipperary and parts of Offaly and Kerry. A large vehicle equipped with various telematics goodies will spend next year visiting educational establishments and Shannon Development's centres throughout the region, in a flexible programme including talks, awareness sessions and longer training courses on everything from the Internet to electronic data interchange (EDI).
The roadshow could be at the location for anything from a day or week to even six weeks, in which case the equipment will be temporarily placed in one of Shannon Development's centres.
Suitable pilot projects to demonstrate the effectiveness of telematics as a business tool will also be initiated in the areas of manufacturing, tourism and education. The 10 regional development agencies will also strive to place their management information systems on a common, pan European basis, so that someone in Tralee, say, could find out about how a particular tourism development works in Scotland or Greece.
Meanwhile, personnel in the regional development agencies will be enabled to put telematics alongside other business tools in the advice and help they offer to fledgling companies.
Of the £7.5 million budget, about £1 million will be spent in the Shannon region, with £600,000 of that coming from Brussels.
"The significance for the region is not the money being spent, although that's important, but that we are being given a platform to test out what can work here, and leading the project will also give us a position of influence," says John King. "We will be able to speak in terms of the region at national level, and we will be able to influence EU policy."
Telecom Eireann sees its participation as part of its development in the information area, says Tom Savage, its representative on the project.
"There's a lot of talk about the Internet and the information superhighway, but there's a difference between talking and getting it working," he says. "We see ourselves as having a practical input, as we have a lot of people here with expertise in structured wiring systems for LANs (local area networks) and routers."
The project, which actually began on January 1st, will be publicly launched next Thursday, but the visit's main purpose is to have two days of discussion on strategy and practical implementation of the project.