Bilkent University is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1984. Currently, there are over 10,000 students (including foreign students from 72 countries), 1,230 faculty members (from 43 countries) and 450 administrative staff. According to ISI Citation Indexes, Bilkent continues to be first in Turkey in the number of published papers per faculty member and ranks high internationally. Bilkent, in its eighteen years of existence, has become the top university in Turkey in terms of the quality of education, scientific research and publications, scholarship, art and cultural activities. The Department of Computer Engineering at Bilkent is one of its most prominent departments in terms of engineering education, research, publications, externally funded projects, ties with industry and impact on society. It is presently the top computer engineering department in Turkey in terms of the number of annual ISI Citation Index publications per faculty and the number of patents and citations received. The research projects conducted at BU-CE are supported by various sources such as the European Commission Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), NATO, U.S. National Science Foundation, TUBITAK (Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey), DPT (State Planning Organization) and the University resources. Many faculty members have close connections with EU researchers. For example, they participate in joint projects such as MUSCLE: Multimedia Understanding through Semantics, Computation and Learning, 6th European Community Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, Network of Excellence, 20042007, 3DTV: Integrated 3-D TV: Capture, Transmission, Display, 6th European Community Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, Network of Excellence, 20042008, COST 292: Semantic Multimodal Analysis of Digital Media, 20052008, SEE-GRID: South Eastern Europe Grid Enabled infrastructure Development, FP6-2002-Infrastructures-2 Communication Network Development-Grids, Specific Support Action, 20042006, DOMAP-ITDC-2004: Unstructured Domain Mapping for Distributed Memory Architectures, Commission of the European Communities DG-III/A/2, 19951997.

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft undertakes applied research of direct utility to private and public enterprise and of wide benefit to society. Its services are solicited by customers and contractual partners in industry, the service sector and public administration. Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications/Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (HHI), located in Berlin is a leading research institute in the fields of Photonic Networks, Mobile Communications and Electronic Imaging for Multimedia. The Image Processing (IP) Department of this institute has a long experience in signal, image, and video processing. About 50 researchers in more than 30 research projects are working in fields related to multimedia with applications ranging from very low bit rate video for mobile services up to high quality coding and processing of Digital Cinema, HDTV, 3DTV and Immersive Media. It covers all fields from algorithm development to chip and systems design. HHI-IP is especially renowned for its leading role in video coding standardisation within ISO/MPEG, ITU-T/VCEG and DVB. In addition it was member of several European research projects of the COST, EUREKA, RACE, ACTS, ESPRIT and IST programmes and currently it is member of the FP6 IST projects ASTRALS, GAMES@LARGE, M-PIPE, RIMANA, WORLDSCREEN, VISNET, 3DTV and RUSHES.

Holografika Ltd. is a private company (SME), founded in 1989 by Tibor Balogh. The company is owned by Tibor Balogh (95%) and by Videoton Holding Co. 5% (Videoton Holding Co. is the largest Hungarian electronics manufacturer). The company was initially involved in the commercial application of various hologram technologies ranging from display holograms to the production of embossed holograms, mostly for security purposes, for key clients such as the Hungarian Banknote Printing House, large Hungarian commercial banks, insurance companies and other commercial and service companies. As an R&D company, Holografika has been focusing on real-time holography and other photonic technologies from the early 90s. Holografika, empowered by its strong connection to university research groups, follows a unique research path in 3D display technology, and was the first in realising a “real 3D” Quasi- Holographic Display system. Holografika research team has been actively involved in the continuous development of the theory and practice of 3D displays. Along with the technologies used in the successive 3D display generations the company has started to develop related 3D technologies, like 3D acquisition, 3D compression and possible 3D formats. In 1996, Holografika and Sony Corporation signed an agreement for an R&D development of laser based display technologies. As a result of the development a laser based monitor prototype and a patent describing this technology, jointly owned by Holografika and Sony was created. Holografika also had technological cooperation with other companies, including large multinationals e.g. GE Medical Systems. Among any others, it carried out the final phase of the development of a head-mounted display system for a US technology company. Holografika registered its first basic patent for the fundamentals of holographic 3D displays in 1992. Reflecting the new focus of the Company a specialized research team were set for the 3D display technology. In 1995, the R&D team developed the basic prototype of a 3D display, which showed wire frames in three dimensions with red laser beams. Holografika presented its 3D display technology first in 1997. The 3D monitor developed was a monochrome 21” monitor applying red laser beams and acousto-optic scanners to create moving 3D images on a flat holographic screen. At the end of 2001 Holografika demonstrated the working technology for moving, white light based, colour, 3D display prototype. In 2006, the prototype of a large-scale 3D display was presented. Holografika participates in several EU and national R&D projects focusing on further display generations and novel interactive 3D applications. As a result of the technology development the company entered the market with its 3D display product line under the HoloVizio trademark.

In 2005 Holografika Ltd. was a recipient of Red Herring 100 Europe award, a selection of the 100 private companies in Europe and Israel that play a leading role in innovation and technology. In 2006 The World Economic Forum has announced Holografika as a Technology Pioneer. The company has also been nominated to the World Technology Award 2006 and The European ICT Prize.

TAT is a Swedish software technology and design company offering products and services that differentiate and enhance the user experience of portable devices. TAT is headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, and has local offices in Korea and USA.

TAT was founded on a passion for developing digital visual experiences through the combination of aesthetics and technology. This passion emerged from years of experimenting with computer graphics on restrained platforms. The six founders successfully competed as a team on the Nordic demo scene in the 90s, where the challenge was to create beautiful and advanced visual experiences in limited time on a limited hardware platform.

TAT has added the WOW effect to mobile user interfaces for more than 250 million devices worldwide. TAT works with 4 of the 6 leading OEMs in the mobile device space today. Publicly announced clients include SonyEricsson, Motorola, S60, Samsung, Vodafone and Orange. TAT has an extensive network of partners covering the whole value chain in the mobile device market. This ensures that our products are fully compliant towards market-leading operating systems, technology standards and hardware and software platforms. Texas Instruments, Freescale, Teleca, Macnica Networks, Montavista, Nvidia and Symbian are among TAT's partners.

Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo (I+D) is the R&D unit of the Telefónica Group, which owns 100% of it. Telefónica R&D was founded in 1988 with the main objective of strengthening the Group’s competitiveness through technological innovation. Being the largest R&D institution in Spain, Telefónica R&D employs today over 1000 researchers and developers in 6 research centres.

Telefónica R&D is mainly focussed in developing innovative Telecommunication products, services and systems for the different business units of the Group, and has been actively involved in several European projects: TIFANIS, RACE I, RACE II, ESPRIT II, ESPRIT III, TEN-IBS, TEN-ISDN, CTS, COST, EURESCOM, BRITE, ACTS, IST, Ten-Telecom, e-Ten, e-Content, EUREKA (ITEA, MEDEA & CELTIC). Telefónica R&D also represents the Group in several of the principal standardization fora for fixed, mobile and wireless communications, convergence, etc.: ITU, GSMA, MEF, OMA, MPF, IEEE, IETF, IPv6Forum, W3C, TISPAN, OSGI, etc.

TID’s research activities on immersive communication systems and 3DTV are conducted by the 3D Video Group (3DVG), within the Multimedia Services Department. The 3DVG has contributed to different European and Spanish research projects related to 3D video communication systems. In the recently finished CELTIC TIFANIS project, the 3DVG was the coordinator of the project. In 3DPresence, Telefónica R&D’s 3DVG will be responsible for the coordination and will also lead the activities of Integration, application development and interoperability (WP4). It will also contribute to selected tasks in other WPs.

The University of Helsinki was established in Turku in 1640, but was transferred to Helsinki in 1828. There are eleven faculties at the University of Helsinki. There are 38,800 degree students and 7,700 staff. The number of degrees taken each year is almost 4,300, of which 400 are doctorates. The University concentrates on high-level scientific research and researcher education. Scientific research is also the basis of the teaching provided by the University. The University operations support the development of society, as well as business and industry. University representatives offer their competencies for the benefit of society through a number of positions of trust and expertise.

The results produced by the research and teaching carried out at the University have been widely acclaimed. The University participates in more than half of the national Centres of Excellence in Research, elected by international scientific panels. The University of Helsinki has been invited to be a member of the League of European Research Universities, a co-operation body for the leading European research universities. According to international expert panels, also the teaching provided by the University of Helsinki is of a high European level. The University has strong international connections. It has some 80 co- operation agreements with universities on different continents. The University researchers are in great demand as experts in international scientific communities, meetings and publications. The University is bilingual, but in addition to Finnish and Swedish teaching is also provided in English. Besides Helsinki, the University has operations at 20 localities throughout Finland.

The Department of Psychology in the University of Helsinki has its roots in the laboratory of experimental psychology, started in the 1920’s by the professor of philosophy Eino Kaila. Today the Department is a lively centre of research and education in psychology and cognitive science. The department consists of ten sections: perception and cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, cognitive brain research unit, traffic psychology, neuropsychology, personality psychology, psychometrics and methodology, psychology of work, technology, and organisations, plus cognitive science. Within the department there are some twenty research groups, the most prominent of which is the Cognitive Brain Research Unit. Since 1st August 2004 , the Department has been part of the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences. The research and education of the Department has been evaluated by international evaluators to be excellent. The Department has also been awarded for its use of learning technology and has been granted the position as Center.