CIPS Connections  – April 4th 2008

The most significant ICT international event ever held in Italy providing a unique opportunity to share ideas and experiences with worldwide experts in the field.Italy will manage the 20th edition of the World Computer Congress, the event organized under the auspieces of IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing), a non profit umbrella organization of national societies working in the field of Information Technology. AICA (Italian Association for Informatics and Automatic Calculus), as a member of IFIP welcomes the most important congress dedicated to the technologies and future outlook in the ICT sector and will collaborate with ITG (International Technology Group) for the logistic and communications items.

The congress will take place in Milan at Milan Convention Center – MIC from September 7 to 10, 2008, a meeting that Italy won over Belgium, Sweden and Singapore. The first congress ever held was in 1959 and every three years thereafter until 1992 in which it was held every two years. The newest location sites of the IFIP congress occurred in Madrid in 1992, Hambourg in 1994, Camberra in 1996, Vienna and Budapest in 1998, Beijing in 2000, Montreal in 2002, Toulouse in 2004, Santiago in 2006.

“We are very proud to get through to manage this International Congress in Italy, an important event for all the scientific sector of the information technologies, that is growing in popularity year to year- noticed Ivo De Lotto, President of AICA. We’re not hiding that we’re looking for a greater attendance mainly form the European and American academic sites. For this reason we’re strongly involved in developing and extraordinary program that will be disseminated through a massive and continued communication. Moreover we cannot forget that Italy is a country of prime interest rate from a tourist point of view and all the attendees will benefit from receiving very convenient travel packages” – concludes De Lotto.

The World Computer Congress 2008 points out a strong international attention for both academic and the research sector. From the beginning the aim of the congress has been to highlight the basic themes in research and developer in informatics, but today we have gone one step further, the congress offers the chance to integrate the research sector within the business concept. The Italian innovative program approved by the General Assembly of IFIP is to integrate the technical-scientific topics with the business cross themes. These integrations will offer ideas and the chance to share experiences with research, politics, industrial and applications users.

“Indeed, during the four days of congress – reports Giulio Occhini, General Manager of AICA – we have scheduled testimonials from influential persons from the institutional, academic and corporate sectors, who will debate the topics connected to the impact of informatics technologies over the business process, with a specific focus. For example: ICT for Cultural Heritage, ICT for Entertainment and Sport, R&D for Textile, Fashion and Tourism or e-Government. Our main goal is to stimulate a strong interaction between students, teaching staff and business enterprises in order to identify the future goals and the economic-social impacts of the informatics and telecommunications technology. The Italian companies interested in taking part as a sponsor have shown a strong interest and selection is already underway” – concludes Occhini.

The improvements of the congress do not end here! We have developed an online game that allows attendees to discover the life of Leonardo da Vinci, the primary representative of the Italian Renaissance. The game will run from January 2007 until January 2008. It is based on a number of questions related to the life and the invention of Leonardo da Vinci. The prize at the end of the game will allow every one to gain additional discount on the entrance fee to the congress. This is a complementary promotion to the standard inscription conditions already available for those who have registered by March 2008 only.

On arrival at the congress, each person who has played and won the above game will be entitled to receive the Leonardo Atlantic Codex on CD-ROM. To take advantage of this offer register at: www.wcc2008.org/leonardo and follow the instructions on how to play. The program of the congress and fees will be available shortly at: www.wcc2008.org.