The General Assembly of ETSI elected a new board of directors for the period 2017-2020. The new board will be chaired by Mr Dirk Weiler of NOKIA. The board is composed by representatives of large companies, national governments, SMEs and other stakeholders. SMEs will be represented by the candidate of SBS – Small Business Standards, Mr Sebastiano Toffaletti, who was elected as board member by ETSI.Sebastiano Toffaletti is Secretary General at the European DIGITAL SME Alliance. Mr Toffaletti has already served as ETSI board member for the period 2014-2017. This new mandate for the period 2017-2020 is the recognition for the continuous work carrying out within the board to represent SMEs and to make ETSI a standards body inclusive of smaller companies and under-represented stakeholders.

DIGITAL SME’s Secretary General thanked the ETSI members for their support and underlined that “standards do not only increase safety, efficiency, interoperability of products, but also foster innovation. SMEs are front-runners in ICT innovation, therefore, representation of their interests in ETSI is crucial”.

“There are very important global challenges on the ETSI agenda for the next years, such as the development of standards for the Internet of Things, smart cities and cybersecurity. It is important that standards developed by ETSI in Europe are accepted worldwide, such that European SMEs can get more opportunities even on the global markets”, he added.

ETSI is the European Telecommunication Standards Institute. It produces applicable standards for Information & Communications Technologies including mobile, radio, broadcast, internet, aeronautical and other areas.It is an independent, not-for-profit association whose more than 800 member companies and organizations, drawn from 68 countries across 5 continents worldwide, determine its work programme and participate directly in its work. ETSI is recognised as European Standards Organisation next to CEN and CENELEC by the EU Regulation 1025/2012.