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Europe is lagging behind and urgently needs a big data investment to get on the bandwagon, Neelie Kroes said

Big data is going to get a big boost from the European Union, which will match an industry consortium's 2 billion investment with 500 million of public money over the next five years.

Companies including Atos, IBM, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Orange, SAP, and Siemens, along with several research bodies, will invest in the public-private partnership (PPP) from January 2015.

The partnership will invest in research and innovation in big data fields such as energy, manufacturing and health to deliver services including personalized medicine, food logistics and predictive analytics. Other products could include forecasting crop yields or speeding thediagnosis of brain injuries.

This investment will give a boost to the struggling European big data industry, European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes said during a news conference in Brussels.

"Europe is trailing behind. Virtually every big data company is from the USA, none are from Europe," she said. "That has to change and that is why we are putting public money on the table."

The money is needed to help companies process some of the 1.7 million gigabytes of data she said is generated around the world each minute. This data, including climate information, satellite imagery, digital pictures and videos, transaction records and GPS signals should be put to use by European companies, Kroes said.

The 25 companies forming the Big Data Value Association also see an immediate need to get their act together and start competing, said association president Jan Sundelin, who is also CEO of the Dutch e-commerce company Tie Kinetix.

Europe is one of the largest retail markets in the world, yet non-European companies "know more about our consumers and what we are doing in Europe than we know ourselves," he said during the news conference, where he invited other companies and startups to take part in the research.

The investments in the industry will also support "Innovation Spaces" that will offer secure environments for experimenting with both private and open data, the Commission said.

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Europe to get 2.5 billion big data boost

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union has called a meeting of health ministers on Thursday to discuss the possible screening of travellers from Ebola-hit west African countries, officials said.

The talks are designed "to coordinate the actions of member states" in the absence of any agreement on whether to monitor travellers to Europe, the officials said.

Britain is the only European nation so far to introduce such measures, with screening at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and on Eurostar trains from France and Belgium.

The United States and Canada had also announced new screening measures at major airport hubs to check travellers for symptoms of the deadly disease, and pressure has grown for other nations to follow their lead.

"The idea is for (EU) member states to discuss screening upon arrival in the European Union," European Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent told reporters.

He said the meeting would focus on coordinating efforts since any introduction of screening at airports and train stations would be a sovereign decision by a member state.

A European source said the discussion will also touch on "the effectiveness of screening procedures on departure from the affected countries".

The goal is to also "reassure Europeans" at a time when the infection of a Spanish nurse last week in Madrid raised concerns throughout Europe, the source added.

Fewer than half a dozen member states, including France and Belgium, have direct air links with high-risk areas of West Africa.

The World Health Organisation has so far not recommended screening travellers from Ebola-hit countries, which carry it out themselves, usually by having officials take the temperatures of travellers.

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EU ministers to hold anti-Ebola talks

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