Acknowledgements

This trail blazing OSCIE is the result of the combined efforts of many hundreds of contributors and is based on the pioneering prior work in this exciting field. A particular debt is owed to:

	The Twelve Trailblazers and the GIF Expert Group: especially their Chairpersons, Secretariats, Editors, WG Leaders, participants and other contributors/reviewers/evangelists
	Members and editors of the CEN/ISSS Workshops E-Sign (Area K), Embedded FINREAD, eURI, and FASTEST
	Partners of the IST or eTEN projects eEpoch, EUCLID, Netc@rds, SINCE, Smart@Pay, Smart-IS
	All who reviewed / provided feedback on the interim public draft texts
	Presenters, participants and hosts of each of the six-monthly Open Steering Committee Meetings. Also a special thank you to the Meeting Sponsors: ALCO, Bank of Greece, CyberComm, ETSI, Eurosmart, French Ministry of Economy and Finance, Greek Government, Ingenico, Mellon Technologies, Microelectronica Española, Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Sweden Post, and Swedish Government.
	Members of the specialist and general eEurope Smart Card distribution lists
	Members of the eEurope Smartcards High Level Group
	IST project SmartCord Partners (Arttic, Eurosmart, Euralia), supporters (CEN/ISSS and ETSI)
	Partners from NICSS, Japan. Also a special appreciation to NICSS, NMDA (New Media Development Association) and other partners in the Japanese Intelligent Cities Project for hosting a most productive series of bilateral discussions and on-site visits in Tokyo
	Partners from NIST, USA
	M Erkki Liikanen, Member of the European Commission, and his staff of the Information Society and Enterprise Directorates-General, for continuous stimulation and support.

The energy invested by many companies, organisations and individuals in the eESC initiative has generated a strong momentum for change. This is being carried forward in specific implementation and deployment projects, in standardization initiatives (e.g. CEN/ISSS WS on eAuthentication, Global Forum on Interoperable IAS), in broad information sharing and collaborative partnerships such as the Porvoo eID Group established through the initiative of the Finnish Population Register Centre, and in the consortia being advanced for further R&D and deployments under FP6 and eTEN respectively.

A heartfelt thank you to one and all.

eEurope Smart Card Charter Steering Committee
March 2003