CCIC12 Motivation and Goals

Despite being a service-oriented economy striving to promote its position as an important international financial, telecommunications and software services center, Cyprus has just started examining policy making and regulatory challenges arising from the emergence of Cloud computing. Realizing that the Cloud ecosystem can play a significant part in the national effort to improve competitiveness and to drive economic growth fueled by Foreign Direct Investment, a healthy IT industry and a dynamic Academic Research sector, the University of Cyprus, Microsoft Cyprus and the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency have undertaken the initiative to organize a workshop under the title "Cloud Computing in Cyprus: Opportunities and Challenges." The workshop aims at examining the prospects, the difficulties and the challenges of establishing the regulatory, technological and business environment that could attract to Cyprus significant international activities in the Cloud Computing sector. The tentative program of the Workshop will feature talks on:

• The Technical Underpinnings of Cloud Computing
• Legal and regulatory challenges regarding data protection in the Cloud environment
• Business opportunities and challenges arising by the emergence of Cloud technologies
• The international perspective: national policies for establishing Cloud Computing infrastructures and services and
• A panel discussion examining the definition of a national roadmap for Cloud Computing in Cyprus