OFE Events - OpenForum Europe Summit 2009 – 24th Apr 2009

It is now only 7 days to go before Europe's most influential ICT conference of the year, so if you have not already applied to attend, now really is your last chance. Four leading keynotes, plus twelve of the top speakers from across the world will debate the issues with the audience via interactive panels. This is your opportunity to hear the views of the experts and contribute to future thinking.

In the last week, three further outstanding speakers have been confirmed. Kicking off the conference will now be Prof Žiga Turk, Secretary General of the independent Reflection Group on the future of Europe, and which will be presenting its report to the European council meeting in June. Closing the conference will be Urban Funered, Special Advisor at the Ministry of Finance, Sweden - looking forward to the Swedish Presidency. And joining the panel discussion on the Future of the Internet will be Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation. In 2005, Time magazine included her in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. This panel will now be chaired by Susanne Zuehlke, Partner at Latham and Watkins.

They join an already impressive list of speakers. Prof Turk joins the other two world renowned keynote speakers -Vint Cerf, universally recognised as father of the internet, and in his role as VP at Google still has a dominant impact on its future direction, plus Anthony Williams, the co-author of the book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, which has developed into not only a worldwide best seller but a cult for new thinking.

The first panel discussion challenges the future of the internet, the real opportunity from cloud computing, the need for openness, and topically because of the recent Commission statement of objection – the role of the browser. Joining Vint Cerf will be Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera, Daniel Dardailler of W3C, top evangelist Sten Tamkivi from Skype, the noted academic Dr Bob Stillman, plus now Mitchell Baker from the Mozilla Foundation.

The afternoon panel chaired by Trond Arne Undheim of Oracle will challenge the economic basis for openness, looking at what European government are or could be doing and questioning the impact on citizens and SMEs. Adam Jollans worldwide strategy manager from IBM, and Matt Asay, director at leading open source company Alfresco and also a leading community commentator, will be challenged by Sebastiano Toffaletti, Secretary General for PIN-SME, James Love of KEI and US co-chair of the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue Working Group, and Prof Dr Luc Soete director of UNU – MERIT, whilst Aslam Raffee CIO of DST and chair of the national working group will explain the leadership thinking the South African Government have taken.

The OpenForum Summit 2009 will help you determine how to use openness to maximise the opportunity for Europe. To apply email events@openforumeurope.org. Full details of the Summit , including the latest agenda, and speaker profiles can be found at www.openforumeurope.org/summit2009.