Final Report

Passionate debate and strong opinions from both advocates and challengers of near field communications, set the tone of another successful NFC Academy Conference, which met for the second time this year in Paris on May 29 and focused on the world of transportation.

The Paris event had a strong emphasis on mobile ticketing, fare collection as well as next generation technologies and standards in NFC. An excellent audience mix of end users and exponents of NFC, shared experiences from NFC pilots in mobile ticketing and intelligent transport systems, in order to separate the hype from reality and stimulate debate on key issues and opportunities for NFC in transport, mobile commerce, security and identification.

The NFC Academy is a year long initiative, set up by Wise Media, to explore and discuss successful deployments, as well as profitable and sustainable business models for near field communications. It went live in 2009 with a series of events featuring both a conference and a technology village. Its inaugural meeting was held in Abu Dhabi in February and was held as the first dedicated event ever in the Middle East under the patronage of the Minister of the Interior of the UAE, H.H. Major General Sheik Saif bin Al Nahyan.

The three-day NFC Academy Conference held in Milan on November 3 – 5 will be the cardinal appointment in the 2009 calendar of NFC Academy events. It will be hosted at the 8th ID WORLD International Congress at the Milanofiori Congress Center and features the three-day conference and a two-day exhibition as well as focused networking activities.

“The NFC Academy Conference aims to foster a more analytical approach, while illustrating the outstanding innovative potential brought by NFC to its very diverse fields of application, and show how this can benefit the different stakeholders involved – and to what extent,” says Sophie B. de la Giroday, President of Wise Media.

“Our event in Paris proved once more the immense attraction of the NFC Academy’s proposition to have end users debate the pros and cons of NFC in a highly qualified forum of experts. In Milan we will build on this and continue the valuable discussions we started in Abu Dhabi and Paris, on the occasion of our cardinal event of 2009, the NFC Academy Conference and Exhibition.”

At the NFC Academy Conference and Exhibition, the NFC community will gather to cover key issues and applications of the technology surrounding ID documents, access control, smart ticketing and payment systems.

Mobile content and commerce, anti-counterfeiting and social networking are other areas of interest to the community, which will be addressed by both the NFC Academy Advisory board and all participants at the event.

To receive further information about the NFC Academy Conference and Exhibition taking place in Milan on November 3,4 and 5 2009, participate in the call for papers or register as an attendee, sponsor or exhibitor, please contact the NFC Academy Organizers’ Office: info@nfcacademy.com or call +39 02 8903 4123.
For further general information, please visit www.nfcacademy.com