Saturday, August 31, 2013

BPN 1656: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (5)

Saturday, 31 August 2013 | CLOSING OF CONFERENCE
09:30–11:30 Closing plenary & feedback, Conference Centre
11:30-12:00 Coffee break , Conference Centre
12:00-15:00 Writing of Jury Evaluation Reports, , Conference Centre
* 2-3 Reports/ Jury Member
13:00-14:00 Lunch Hotel restaurant
16:00 Arab E-Content Award Plenary, Conference Centre (subset jury)
16:00 Sightseeing hop-on-hop-off bus tour around Tallinn

Sunday, 01 September 2013 | DEPARTURES

Friday, August 30, 2013

BPN 1655: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (4)

Friday, 30 August 2013
09:00–11:30 Business Breakfast, Tallinn Technopol Startup Incubator
* Presenting development trends in each category and development in certain country/region by the assigned jury member)
*Networking
* Bus leaving from hotel at 09:00
11:45-12:45 Visit to the Government Offices & e-cabinet
* greeting from the Prime Minister Mr Andrus Ansip
* Bus leaving from Government Offices for Conference Centre Hotel at 12:45

13:00-15:00 Plenary Round 2 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners Categories 3 & 4, Conference Centre
15:00-16:00 Lunch Hotel restaurant
16:00-17:45 Plenary Round 3 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners Categories 5 & 6, Conference Centre
17:45-18:15 Coffee break , Conference Centre
18:15-20:00 Plenary Round 4 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners in Categories 7 & 8, Conference Centre
20:30 Dinner hosted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the Estonian Information System´s Authority meeting in the lobby at 20:15 Restaurant MEKK

Thursday, August 29, 2013

BPN 1654: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (3)

Thursday, 29 August 2013 | Grand Jury and e-Estonia B2B Seminar at the Conference Centre of Sokos Viru Hotel
8:30-10:15 Online Jury 2nd Round, 4 Panels with 2 Categories, evaluating the short listed products
10:45-12:30 Online Jury 2nd Round 4 Panels with 2 Categories, evaluating the short listed products
11:00-11:30 Coffee break
12:30-14:00 Preparing 8 Nominations for each category for the voting
14:00-15:00 Lunch Hotel restaurant

e-Estonia seminar & B2B
15:00-16:00 The e-Estonia story by Taavi Kotka, Deputy Secretary General – ICT
16:00-16:30 eGovernance Academy's experiences from the world by Mr. Hannes Astok
16:30-17:45 World-cafe-style B2B with Estonian ICT companies
17:45-19.00 Networking dinner Hotel restaurant
19:15 -21:15 Plenary Round 1 Presentation of Products and Voting for Winners in Categories 1+2
21:15 -21:30 Coffee break
21:30-… Preparation for Business Breakfast

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

BPN 1653: WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (2)

Wednesday, 28 August 2013 | Arrival of WSA Grand Jury and Welcome troughout the day
Arrivals

19:30 Reception by The Austrian Ambassador Ms Renate Kobler, Austrian Residence
-        Renate Kobler, Austrian Ambassador to Estonia
-        Prof. Peter A. Bruck, WSA Chairman
-        Taavi Kotka, Deputy Secretary General - ICT of The Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications

21:30 Welcome Plenary, Presentation of Modus, Rules at the Conference Centre, room Grande 1


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

BPN 1652 : WSA Grand Jury 2013 in Tallinn, Estonia (1)

The World Summit Award organisation is ready to gather in Tallinn (Estonia) for its Grand Jury session of the sixth edition of the World Summit Award (WSA). There has been an online selection establishing the shortlist to be considered. Now the final five place are being decided upon in Grand Jury sessions. Besides Grand Jury duties, the WSA Grand Jury will be in sessions with Estonian organisations and visit the Business Accelerator Technopol and the site of the Estonian government, famous for its e-cabinet.

WSA Grand Jury Chair & Moderator
Prof. Peter A. Bruck, Chairman of WSA Board of Directors, Austria
WSA Grand Jury Members
Christian Rupp, Spokesperson e-Gov Digital Platform, Austria
Witman Hung, President iProA, China

Mihkel Tikk, Head of The Department of State Portal, Estonian Information Systems Authority, Estonia

Dorothy Gordon, DG, Ghana-India, Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, Ghana
Osama Manzar, Founder and CEO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, India
Anne Shongwe, CEO and Founder, Afroes, Kenya
Manar Alhashash, Secretary General Kuwait e-Award, Kuwait
Nibal Idlebi, Chief of the ICT Applications Section at UN-ESCWA, Lebanon
Ieva Zilione, Director, Information Society Development Committee under the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Lithuania
Jak Boumans, Managing Director, Electronic Media Reporting, Netherlands
Marta Tomovska, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Information Society and Administration
Macedonia, Anya Sverdlov
Managing Director, Actis Wunderman, Russian Federation
Mustafa Khan, Director of Center of excellence for Research and Development , Yesser, Saudi Arabia
Jasna Matic, Special Adviser for Competitveness and Knowledge Economy , Ministry of Finance and Economy, Serbia
Ralph Simon, CEO & Founder: Mobilium International; Chairman Emeritus & Founder: Mobile Entertainment Forum – Americas, USA/UK
Madanmohan Rao,  Chief Researcher Mobile Monday, Singapore/India
Chitranganie Mubarak, Senior Programme Head, e-Society Programme, ICTA, Sri Lanka


  
 
 

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Update BPN 1649: E-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

14 August 2013
Dutch eBook Sellers Mandated to Provide Customer Data to Anti-Piracy Agency

 

Update BPN 1649: e-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (5)

14 August 2013

Presently more than 75 per cent of the Dutch e-books are DRM-free. This comes down to 8400 titles. Now the publishers still get another chance to move from DRM to DRM-free before September 1, 2013.

Most publishers will have DRM-free titles, but in the distribution things might be different. Bol.com and bruna.nl deliver e-books DRM-free, but with a digital watermark against piracy. E-books, distributed by Apple’s iBookstore and Kobo, still carry DRM. Also Google, since last month a new player on the Dutch e-book market, adds DRM to the e-books sold.


Saturday, August 10, 2013

BPN 1651: On the ethics and law for robots

I am fascinated by the new area opening up on the rights of robots. So far I have not thought about it that much. But it is interesting to explore the area of ethics and law for robots. This is really different ethics from the course I took at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, La. (USA) in 1968. It looks like exploring a completely new terrain in ethics and law. It is not about ethics and law intended for humans, but do humans behave ethically over against robots and do robots have rights.
 
I have become interested in this field as my dear friend Christy Dena has been awarded Australia’s first ever digital writing residency to explore robot ethics at Queensland University of Technology's using high-end technology suites like The Cube, the world-leading, large scale, high-definition interactive display environment. She will be the creator of a project called Robot University.
 
This is the Facebook message she published today.

 
Tomorrow morning (in Australia), I'll be on ABC radio talking a little about my "Robot University" project. The session is in interesting exploration of robots and their rights. The recording, and transcript, are online now.


The broadcast company ABC has put out this blur for advertising the radio broadcast:

Seattle-based Peter Remine is ready for the day when robots become so intelligent they start demanding their rights. In fact, he’s even formed an organisation in preparation for that time. It’s called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots.

It might seem far-fetched at this stage, but robot ethics and the law is a growing field of study. It’s about their rights, it’s about our ethics and it’s also about liability.

The broadcast lasts 29 minutes and can be listened to or downloaded.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Update BPN 1646: e-books in the Netherlands

Update article Google starts e-book sales in the Netherlands (2)

1 August 2013

Recent GfK market research shows that of all Dutch language titles only 12 per cent is available as e-book. This is most likely a reason why the e-book market in the Netherlands is slow.

In the first half of 2013 e-books had a turn-over of 3,5 per cent of the total book sales. Last month another source claimed 4,1 per cent. Last year the percentage was 2,4.

In the first half of 2013 almost 800.000 e-books were sold in the Netherlands, good for 7,6 million euro; on average 9,50 euro per e-book. More than 80 per cent came out of fiction, while only a little bit more than a quarter of all Dutch language fiction titles are available as e-book.