The last 3 days I spent at Trikala were truly amazing. The conference held in a gorgeous industrial setting at the perfectly preserved 19th century “Mill of Matsopoulos“. The hosts were amazing and the organization reached high standards (Special thanks to Odysseas and Vassiliki). On the downside, I think the schedule was a bit too tight (many speakers with limited time at hand) and more clear guidelines for the presentation thematology and possibly even an extra session or two, might have saved time and allowed the participants to get the most out of the event.
I do not plan to go through a detailed review of each session rather outline some of my conclusions which I take from this year’s conference:
- It was clearly pointed by the speakers and the comments from the audience that a broader context for evaluating broadband development is required. Infrastructure must not be tackled in isolation of the development of a social culture towards information society. Most of the speakers, each from his own perspective stretched the importance of a social consensus about the necessity of the Information Society. Besides, the most successful broadband projects worldwide have been those that managed to inspire citizens and not just those that accomplished a successful broadband infrastructure roll-out.
- Success is not easy. What is easy is local authorities experimenting. Experimentation that will help them assess their potentials and increase their chances to select a successful path for an all-inclusive information society strategy.
- Success is difficult and will require resources, coordination and vision; but is is doable. And it is doable simply because broadband is the future (despite the fact that this future although highly anticipated it is not supported by hard economic facts).
- Even among the international pioneers there’s yet no evidence that a clear plan to address the maximum broadband potentials is being drafted. Many are the projects and many the objectives around the globe. And all are leveraging not on the capacity potential of broadband rather on its high availability and increased connectivity features. Transportation management, traffic management, social care at home, public safety and other presented cases are services that currently are not designed on the basis of high broadband capacity rather on the feature of mobility, always-on and (I’ll give you that) broadband speed. However, these simple services a) will provide the proof of concept to the public b) will help increase the social awareness for the benefits of the information society and c) will win the public agreement for the future required concession (civil inconveniences, financial investments etc).
What I liked was the feeling that the entire city knew about and participated in the event. What I’d prefer better is to see many more municipal officials from other cities participating.
If you’re interested, you can download the presentations here.
