EMERGENCE NEWS

Where in the World? Budapest!

Budapest was the site for the first global conference ever to be held on eWork location, hosted by the Hungarian Institute of Sociology, the local EMERGENCE partner.
 

Prof. Kazuhiko Nishi, former Vice President of Microsoft, and founder and President of ASCII Corporation Japan addresses the conference.

It brought together a diverse range of participants from all corners of the globe, and from many different constituencies. Despite jet-lag, unfamiliar languages and strongly contrasting backgrounds, delegates were enthusiastic. Feedback has been uniformly positive, with many commenting on the opportunities it gave them for developing new networks. Even experienced conference-goers were struck by how few of the participants were already known to them, but how much they nevertheless had in common in terms of shared interests. In the words of one participant: ‘I was really impressed at the way people were willing to talk and discuss among each other even when they came from very different backgrounds - such a welcome change from childish point-scoring.’

A well received event ‘What a great conference and meeting, such a fantastic level of cooperation and expertise: any government should be grateful to have the services of such a team! If I count right I now have about five new joint projects to consider, though time is a limitation. As well I hope to visit some of the other participants for more in-depth conversations on a longer trip to Europe in the second half of next year.’ Excluded from the global digital economy? Dr Charles Manga Fombad, senior lecturer at the University of Botswana presents the case of Botswana. An overview of call centres Dr Ellen Balka (left) Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University Canada presenting the case of New Brunswick with Dr Serge Leroux (right), General Secretary of ISERES, France and director of the TOSCA project, in the chair. ‘It was a really good conference, compliments and congratulations. EMERGENCE has strengthened its reputation as an innovative, interesting and sound project.’ ‘I was personally very interested by the conference. It was an opportunity, not only to listen to various contributions, but also to meet people directly. The conference was very well organised.’ ‘I would like to thank you for organizing the conference in Budapest. It was a great pleasure for me to be there, and meeting the people who are involved in the EMERGENCE project. I will keep an eye on your website; maybe we’ll meet again at the next conference…’

The conference brought together for the first time members of several different research communities including labour market research, development economics, science and technology policy, economic geography, industrial relations and gender studies, as well as experts in econometrics, statistical indicators and specialists on the new economy. Industrial partners were well represented at all levels: on the employer side, Gabor Elo (Head of the Nokia Research laboratories in Hungary) to representatives of dynamic SMEs in the EU, Eastern Europe and South Africa; on the trade union side, from the ETUC to the Confederation of South African Trade Unions. There were also representatives from enterprise support agencies, ranging from official government departments (such as FORFAS in Ireland) to private initiatives designed to encourage entrepreneurship in the new economy, such as First Tuesday. Geographically, the participants were drawn from virtually all continents.

Dr Rifka Weehuizen, Research Co-ordinator  at the International Institute of Infonomics at the University of Maastricht, chairs a workshop.

The conference gave birth to several new research proposals as well as a proposal to hold a follow-up conference in 2001. We will report on the outcomes of these on this website and in the EMERGENCE newsletter. In the meanwhile, the conference papers and presentations can be found here:

 Where in the World? Conference programme and papers

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