Viviane Reding, Euro Commissioner
Position: 10 Last year: Not ranked
Why? Cheaper mobile roaming
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It's not often a politician makes it into the top 50, but according to the panel Viviane Reding wields plenty of power over the technology agenda - and not just in Europe.
As European commissioner for information society and media, the Luxembourger has a hand in pretty much every decision about technology legislation that takes place in Europe, whether it's to do with mobile TV standards, RFID regulation, opening up frequencies for wireless broadband or pushing electronic safety systems for cars.
This summer - to the joy of mobile users across Europe - she won her battle to force mobile operators to cut the charges for users roaming abroad - with SMS and data rates likely to be next in the firing line.
And it's not just the price cuts in Europe that have made her an Agenda Setter - the panel predicts that her victory could have a global impact. Access to broadband is another area where her decisions could have major consequences.
Not every decision is welcomed of course - for example, Reding earned the disapproval of ISPs earlier this year because of the way the dot-eu domain name registration was handled.
Most recently she weighed in on the tech skills crisis - warning that Europe is missing out on billions in investment because its workers lack IT skills.
And the panel was impressed by the way she has driven the e-inclusion agenda across Europe."I think people are now taking her and that agenda really quite seriously," said one panel member.
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the agenda setters poll in years past
"Blogging's definitely got to the point where there're enough mainstream consumers watching it for the top bloggers to be regarded as agenda setters."
Michael Smith,
Agenda Setters panellist
"Open source gets more important rather than being something that will get squeezed out of the enterprise."
Simon Briskman,
Agenda Setters panellist
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Content featuring Viviane Reding
Viviane Reding, information society and media commissioner for the EC, said she wants EU countries to have made the move by 2012. The European Commission has called for EU members to speed their switchover to digital television, and therefore in...
On the first day of the events, Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner for information society and media, and Charlie McCreevy, commissioner for the bloc's internal market, said in a joint statement "it is time for Europe to turn over a new e-leaf...
The GSM standard has been a success story for Europe, where it was born," the European telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement. Europe has approved the use of 3G services over spectrum currently reserved for 2G.
We agree with European Commissioner, Viviane Reding, when she said, 'We should create a modern set of European rules that encourage the digitisation of books'. European Union regulators want publishers and authors to weigh in on copyright issues...
Viviane Reding, speaking at the unveiling of the Commission's Digital Europe strategy on Thursday, said 99 per cent of EU firms are small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but only nine per cent of them use electronic invoices and only 11 per...
Commissioners Viviane Reding and Meglena Kuneva have proposed that EU consumer protections for physical products be extended to software. Software companies could be held responsible for the security and efficiency of their products, if a new...
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