On 10 February 2026 – I will silently yet vibrantly celebrate the 40th anniversary of my taking office at Directorate-General XIII (now DG CONNECT) of the European Commission.

Recruited as an expert by Giangaleazzo CAIROLI and Roland HÜBER, I had the opportunity to begin my work in one of the most fantastic teams of DG XIII – the RACE Division (later Directorate) in charge of bringing together the EU Telecom community to design, develop and implement so-called Integrated Broadband Communications (IBC). Actually, my specific role was to explore a RACE-based action on Bio-medical Informatics Collaborative European Programme and Strategy (BICEPS, ça ne s’invente pas…). We had a great leader, the late Roland HÜBER, to inspire and guide us towards the objective of getting approval by the Council of the renamed Advanced Informatics in Medicine (AIM) exploratory action (24 months, ECU20 million). Roland was admired and revered by his staff for his unique vision of the future of telecommunications, but also his tenacity, spirit, talent and uncompromising professional integrity. I was 31-34 years old, and I enjoyed an extraordinary period at work, marked also by the completion of the Single Market by 1992.

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