Liberation Development Agency (LIDA)

Today’s societies are facing increasingly complex issues, unprecedented in the history of mankind, and serious risks of breakdowns are in sight, as far as environmental, economic and social issues are concerned. In order to avoid major worldwide crises, industrial, emerging and developing countries will need to agree, sooner or later, on an alternative way forward, based on a true sustainable development, a more sustainable economic growth, more equally shared resources. What is at stake is durable innovation paths for companies and, ultimately, the wellbeing of all citizens of the world to be measured by new indexes going “beyond GDP”.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will play a central role in this future, not only because ICT have become in just two decades a key driver of the development of all countries worldwide, but also because ICT can efficiently contribute to the achievement of the revised economic, social and environmental objectives which this future envisages. Moreover, Europe is undoubtedly well placed to proactively promote this new concept of progress towards a true sustainable future.

In this context, the “ICT for a global sustainable future” conference is organised, with the support of the PARADISO project, on January 22-23, 2009 at the European Commission in Brussels (Charlemagne building, 170 rue de la Loi).

The event officially takes place under the aegis of the European Commission and takes advantage of the support of many leading organizations: the OECD, UNESCO, ITU, WWF, the Club of Rome (European Support Center), the World Future Council, and the Forum for the Future.

The event will give the opportunity to participants to thoroughly understand and discuss what is at stake and which research areas can be usefully explored in the short and in the longer terms so that appropriate infrastructures, applications and services, based on Information and Communication Technologies, can be available tomorrow for the citizens of the world.

The event will start on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 10:00am and will be officially opened by European Commissioner Viviane Reding. It will end on Friday, Jan. 23 at 4:30pm. The first day will be mainly devoted to keynote addresses, visions presented by supporting organisations and contributions from worldwide experts in ICT and societal developments, addressing the various issues summarised above. The second day will focus on “the way forward”, will include presentations and discussions related to the “PARADISO reference document” disseminated prior to the event, and will eventually discuss a possible roadmap to efficiently build on event outputs.

Over 400 individuals and organisations, active or interested in the areas of ICT and of societal developments are expected to attend. Even if registration for the event is free of charge, pre-registration is compulsory, due to security rules linked to access to event venue. Moreover, early registration is strongly recommended since, due to room capacity constraints, the registration process may be closed prior to the event.

Please note that there is no Call for papers published for this conference but that some contributions submitted in response to the open consultation launched following the release of the draft version of the PARADISO reference document will be selected and presented during the conference. We therefore invite you to submit a contribution to the Open consultation.