“Standards and the Future of the Internet - the role of open standards, standards development and standards organisations

for innovation and healthy marketplaces”

25-27 February 2008

International Conference Centre, Geneva

The Conference is organised by OpenForum Europe with the support of the following organisations: Ars Aperta, Certified Open, Danish Open Source Business Association, Dutch OpenDocument Society, Free Software Foundation Europe, GesmerUpdegrove LLP, Google, IBM, ODF Alliance,
OpenIreland, Opera Software, Red Hat, The Open Learning Centre

The Conference will commence with a reception on the evening of Monday 25 February. There will be three working sessions on Tuesday and two on Wednesday. The high point of the conference is the keynote on Tuesday evening. The conference will close with a reception and boat trip and refreshments on Wednesday evening.

Evening Keynote, Tuesday 26 February, 18:30-20:00

“Standards and the Future of the Internet - the role of open standards,

standards development and standards organisations

for innovation and healthy marketplaces”

This will feature a panel of highly distinguished speakers, including Vint Cerf from Google, the Godfather of the Internet, Robert Sutor, Vice President, Standards and Open Source, IBM, Håkon Lie, Chief Technology Officer, Opera Software, formerly with W3C and Andy Updegrove of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, and author of the well known blog Consortium.Info.org. The session will be chaired by OFE Chief Executive, Graham Taylor:

In addition there will be three main working sessions, on Raising the Quality in Standards Development, IPR and Standards, and Open Documents and Democracy. Programme details are provided overleaf.

We would be pleased if you could join us for the conference. There is no fee for attendance (receptions, evening briefing are all included in the invitation) but places are limited due to the numbers we can accommodate in the Conference Centre. Participants need to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements.