Conference

Two events have been organised in the framework of the PARADISO project to efficiently interact with individuals and organisations from all over the world, specialised or interested in issues related to societal developments and to ICT research. A precise expected output of these events was the thorough discussion of the draft version of the PARADISO Reference document.

The first event, held on June 12-13, 2008 at the European Commission in Brussels, was a scientific workshop attended by over 40 experts. Detailed information on this event is provided in the Workshop section of this web site.

The second event was the "ICT for a global sustainable future" conference, held in Brussels on January 22-23, 2009 under the aegis of the European Commission and with the support of many international organisations, including the OECD, UNESCO, and ITU.

It is estimated that over 800 persons from around 70 countries followed the event, either from the Charlemagne building where the event took place (see attendee list) or online, the event having been broadcasted live on the Internet during the two days.

The opening session was launched by the above teaser proposed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and included speeches from Viviane Reding (European Commissioner, Information Society and Media), Dr Hamadoun I. Touré (Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union), Jeremy Rifkin (President, Foundation on Economic Trends), Hans-Gert Pöttering (President of the European Parliament), and Maria da Graça Carvalho (Principal Adviser, Bureau of European Policy Advisers, European Commission).

During the first day, over 20 keynote speakers shared with the audience their vision of today's global challenges and of how to address them to ensure a true sustainable future (particularly thanks to Information and Communication Technologies). During the second day, after opening addresses from the European Committee of the regions and from the European Economic and Social Committee, 25 other speakers introduced the different sustainable future initiatives funded by the European Commission and discussed possible future directions for EU ICT research.

The event can be considered as having reached its two main objectives: further developing and validating the PARADISO vision (in this context, a revised version of the PARADISO reference document will be produced, and made available on this web site, before the end of February) and bringing the message towards, if not having it endorsed by, the various political instances of the European Union.

But this milestone reached is only a first step and a lot remains to be done, as underlined during the wrap-up session, to influence the political agenda and identify the ICT research areas likely to contribute building a true global sustainable future.

The conference proceedings can be accessed here: they include the final programme, speakers' bios, speeches and presentations in pdf format, and videos extracted from the live broadcasting of the event. A photo album can be accessed here as well.

For any further information you may need, please contact us.