European Information Society Conference 2008

September 25th-27th, 2008: Naples, Italy

The 7th European Information Society Conference EISCO 2008 took place from 25th to 27th September in Naples, in the Castell del’Ovo.

EISCO 2008 assessed the progress of the Digital Local Agenda (DLA) in Europe, its contribution to innovation, governance and e-Inclusion by means of digital networks and communication instruments. The Conference showcased the development of local networks and inter-regional cooperation to foster progress of the Digital Local Agenda.

The DEN4DEK Project Officer, Francesco Nachira, gave a keynote speech during the Conference, along with other members of the Digital Ecosystems community and DEN4DEK, such as:

  • Javier Val (Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón)
  • Flavio Bonfatti (University of Modena Reggio Emilia – collaborating closely with ITL)
  • Tim Miller (EMNET)
  • Simon Lavin (Welsh Assembly)
  • Patrick Sullivan (CMI International, Ireland)
  • Luigi Telesca (Create-net Trento, Italy)
  • Lorena Rivera León (DEN4DEK Co-ordination team)

The Conference was successful in underlining the importance of Digital Ecosystems to European regions, in the context of an innovative collaborative approach for regional economic development.

The Final Declaration of the Conference says:

‘A first significant conclusion is the need to implement digital ecosystems in the territories, for an integrated bottom-up approach for building digital capacity and endogenous local development. By adopting them and its underlying principles, public administrations can provide more tailored and personalised ICT services to citizens and businesses, which are cost-effective and adapted to the local culture and administrative processes. It allows administrations to pool, reuse, adapt and integrate different services created in other administrations in an easy and fast way. Together with pre-commercial procurement mechanisms, it allows local governments to involve local SMEs both as users and developers of services, thereby activating local capacity building and knowledge sharing processes amongst the stakeholders with both the local area and across other national and international environments’.

‘The Naples Declaration: Moving forward the Digital Local Agenda’, can be downloaded by clicking here.