CALENDAR.

• Position: Calendar of Events - Brief Article

* Conference to discuss IDA's role in pan-European eGovernment

A conference on pan-European eGovernment Services will take place in Brussels on September 19 to 20. Organised under the 'Interchange of Data between Administrations' (IDA) programme of the European Commission, an initiative designed to support rapid electronic exchange of information between Member State administrations, the conference, "Pan-European eGovernment Services for Citizens and Enterprises: The Role of IDA", will be opened by Erkki Liikanen, the Commissioner responsible for Enterprise and the Information society.

The first session will see the launch of the portal of the EU administration, a centre point of online information and services designed to assist the mobility of people, enterprises and products in Europe. The conference will analyse the needs of citizens and enterprises for eGovernment services as well as contributing to the finalisation of a pan-European eGovernment strategy - part of the eEurope initiative. The IDA's strategy for 2003-2004 and beyond will also be under discussion.

Senior officials from both the Commission and national governments will be in attendance, alongside the some 200 expected participants.

For further details see: http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida; or e-mail: ida-central@cec.eu.int

* Conference on innovation in language and speech technologies

"LangTech" 2002, a conference on language technology solutions, will take place in Berlin on September 26 and 27. Covering applications in voice, knowledge and multilingualism, this event will present human language technologies from both the industrial user and the developer's perspective. Language technologies are one key action line of the Fifth Framework programme's sub-programme on Information society technologies (IST). At the conference, a group of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) will present their business concepts in a competition for the LangTech prize. Venture capitalists will also outline pre-conditions for new investments.

These participants will be joined by researchers, service providers and technology transfer specialists. In addition to presentations and exhibitions, the conference will also feature panel discussions on issues affecting the European and global language technology market.

For further details see: http://www.lang-tech.org

* International conference on Information society technologies for broadband Europe

The European Commission supporting an...