[Fsfe-ie] Announcement: Open Standards and Libre Software in Government, 18.11.2004, The Hague

Teresa Hackett teresahackett at eircom.net
Tue Oct 5 20:01:32 CEST 2004


Announcement: Open Standards and Libre Software in Government

18 November 2004, Van Gogh Hall,  Netherlands Congress Centre, The Hague, 
The Netherlands
www.flosspols.org/conf/

Open standards and Libre Software are increasingly important to governments 
around the world, and Europe leads in their adoption and promotion. The 
most high-profile event of the European Information and Communications 
Technology calendar, the IST 2004 conference, takes place in The Hague from 
the 15th to the 17th of November. The conference “Open Standards and Libre 
Software in Government” is held immediately afterwards, at the same venue 
and in coordination with the Dutch Presidency of the European Union.

This conference will provide an unparalleled stage for discussing and 
learning about the concrete plans, policies and actual implementations of 
open standards and Libre Software by public authorities across Europe. The 
conference will also stimulate discussion and debate on open standards and 
Libre Software (as free software/open source is often known) in the design 
and implementation of affordable, scalable and secure eGovernment services. 
It will highlight achievements and landmark national initiatives and 
discuss the challenges and priorities for furthering the use of Libre Software.

The conference delegates will be mainly from public authorities across 
Europe, as well as from related businesses and community interests. Over 
500 people are expected to attend.

The conference programme will include presentations by speakers drawn 
primarily from public administrations, and there will be a prominent 
participation of government ministry officials from various EU countries as 
well as from the European Commission. The programme is organised in three 
sessions on:
- the national and EU-level;
- the local and regional level;
- and interoperability issues.

There will be a spotlight on case studies - including a presentation on the 
European Regional Innovation Award-winning gnu/LinEx policies of 
Extremadura by Regional Minister Luis Millan Vazquez de Miguel. Successful 
strategies will be presented for the large-scale migration and 
implementation of Libre software in government - including the German 
Federal Government’s Migration Guidelines

Confirmed speakers include:
- Agnès Bradier
Deputy Head, E-government Unit, European Commission
- Mark Bressers
Programma OSOSS, The Netherlands
- Christian Hardy
Chief of Information System Department, Forecasting directorate, Ministry 
of Economics, Finance and Industry, France
- Barbara Held
IDA, European Commission
- Gregor Lietz
EDS (Federal Interior Ministry contractor for the Migration Guide), Germany
- Alasdair Mangham
London Borough of Camden, United Kingdom
- Arnold Reinders
Ministry of the Interior, The Netherlands
- Bernhard Schnittger
IDA, European Commission
- Giovanni Sissa
Osservatorio Tecnologico of the Ministry of Research and Education, Italy
- Mauro Solari
Deputy President, Province of Genova, Italy
- Rolf Theodor Schuster
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany
- Wilbert Stolte
Vice-Mayor, City of Den Haag, The Netherlands
- Jan van de Straat
City of Haarlem, The Netherlands
- Luis Millan Vazquez de Miguel
Regional Minister of Extremadura, Spain
- Robin Weissenberger
City of Vienna, Austria

The conference, held in coordination with the Dutch Presidency of the EU, 
is partly funded under the European Union’s Sixth Framework Information 
Society Technologies Programme through the FLOSSPOLS project at MERIT, 
University of Maastricht, and a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Economic 
Affairs. It is also supported by the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and the 
Dutch Government’s OSOSS Programme, as well as FLOSSPOLS project partner 
Eurocities/Telecities. The primary corporate sponsor is IBM. The gold 
corporate sponsor is Novell.

Participation in the conference is free but early registration is required 
as places are limited. For more information and online registration, visit 
the conference website at www.flosspols.org/conf/

For more information, or if you want a conference poster, contact:
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Project Leader, FLOSSPOLS,
MERIT/Infonomics, University of Maastricht,
PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands.
E-mail: conf at flosspols.org





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