IST EVENT 2004 :: Conference
The Conference
Introduction
The conference programme should appeal to decision-makers from the public sector, private industry and the world of research as well as to interested citizens, especially young people and students, sharing a common challenge: to improve the prosperity, security and quality of life for all Europeans through the development of a citizen-centred Information Society.
The general theme of this year’s IST event is:
IST 2004 - Participate in your future
People and Economy
Subjects building on the two pillars of people and economy are:
1) We need to boost economic growth and create more high-quality jobs in Europe:
- Productivity growth for sustainable wealth, competitiveness, and welfare
- The key role of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) for economic growth throughout all of economy
- Based on economic renewal in many sectors, private and public
- Productivity growth comes from ICT + organisation + people
- Sustainable competitive advantage is increasingly based on ICT-enabled investment in intangibles: people and their skills, processes, organisation, culture
2) We need to step up innovation based on ICT as a driver of economic growth, Europe’s innovation and entrepreneurship deficit:
- Without innovation, productivity growth and competitiveness are not sustainable
- ICT is the key underpinning technology for innovation
- Innovation is as much about people, education, organisation, culture as about technology
- Innovation originates increasingly from cutting across traditional boundaries and the collaboration between different disciplines
3) Society is changing, new societal demands and new societal patterns are emerging, such as ageing, immigration, enlargement, Europe in the world (Lisbon is about economic, social, environmental renewal), new forms of communities, new societal behaviour enabled by ambient intelligence, based on human-centred perspective, new approaches to ‘good governance’.
4) People wish that security, justice, liberty are guaranteed – combating crime and terrorism, protecting essential freedoms and critical shared infrastructures for economy and society, future research in security, privacy and identity management, etc.
These topics will be substantiated with a set of four crosscutting themes that will be addressed in the conference sessions as well as within the exhibition. The four crosscutting themes are listed below:
- People – as persons, individuals in the knowledge society – theme 1
- People – as members of communities and organisations – theme 2
- Economy – the private sector in the knowledge economy – theme 3
- Economy – the public sector in the knowledge economy – theme 4
The final programme of the conference incorporates input by the European and world-wide public at large, responding to the call for conference ideas aimed at stimulating interesting proposals for individual contributions and/or whole sessions. Ideas could address any of the four crosscutting themes.
Please also note that:
- The deadline for the submission of conference ideas was 4 June.