After working in Bonn (DFG), Münster (director of the library of the university)  and Mainz (city library), Reinhard Altenhöner is currently the head of the IT division of the German national library (Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin) in Frankfurt am Main. He is focusing on the continuing and new development of digital services of the German National Bibliography (DNB) for users and libraries, on the support and continuing development of formats and interfaces, the long-term archiving and on national and European projects. In addition, Reinhard Altenhöner is in charge of various functions in the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) as well as other national and international bodies and entertains different memberships; he is also a published author.  

The first professional appointments of Lutz R. Anderie were in the sales division of  DHL Worldwide Express and Hasbro. From 1998 to 2005, Anderie was working for Paramount Pictures. As marketing director in charge of consumer and commercial marketing, he was responsible for developing the DVD division for the German-speaking markets. In March 2005, he switched to ATARI Germany, where he filled the position of marketing director and was responsible for the sales in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Russia in his function as manger for Eastern Europe. In September 2006, Anderie became managing director for GSA Eastern Europe and Russia at ATARI Germany and in July 2008 he was appointed to be vice president for continental Europe. In this position, he was responsible for managing the German branch office as well as the Atari business in more than 20 European countries in a dual role. Over the course of his professional career, Anderie received numerous awards, including „DVD Champion",„European Catalogues Sales" award and the award for „Best International Marketing Initiatives".

Steven Bender has been developing animation and cinematics for 10 years. As the Animation and Cinematic Director on the recently released Crysis:Warhead, Mr. Bender has also been integral in developing tools and pipelines for animation and cinematics in the CryEngine2.

Dr. Eberhard Blümel is heading the business unit "Virtual Interaktive Training" of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Fabrikbetrieb und Automatisierung in Magdeburg.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Holger Boche is Director of the Department of Mobile Communications at the Technical University of Berlin, of the Fraunhofer German-Sino Lab for Mobile Communications, Berlin and of the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications (Heinrich-Hertz-Institute) in Berlin. Several key developments in the expansion of the mobile phone networks in recent years have been due to Holger Boche. On the basis of his theoretical work, Boche has advanced the understanding of complex mobile communication systems and at the same time has put his insights into practice in the technology used to standardise new mobile telephone systems. His research is of particular relevance to cross-layer optimisation, which increases the effectiveness and reliability of mobile phone networks. Boche has thus contributed significantly towards making it possible to use the existing mobile network frequencies with as few permanently installed transmitters and receivers to provide full coverage - a task which is not only a considerable scientific challenge but also has great economic potential.
After completing vocational training as a measurement and control engineer at the mineral oil plant Lützkendorf, in former East Germany, Holger Boche studied information technology at the Technical University of Dresden from 1986 until 1990, and then, from 1990 until 1992 he also studied mathematics - while also working as a research assistant. Having obtained two degrees Boche then went on to obtain a doctorate in both subjects. Since 1998 he has been the head of the Department of Broadband Mobile Communication Networks at the Fraunhofer Society's Heinrich Hertz Institute as well as being head of its German-Sino Lab for Mobile Communications. He is the recipient of several awards and distinctions such as the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibnitz-Preis and the Johann-Philipp-Reis-Award. He is also elected as a member of the German Acadamy of Sciences (Lepoldina).

Debjit Chaudhuri is Head of Infosys operations in Germany and also for Southern Europe. He set up the Infosys operations in Germany in 1999 and since then Infosys has more than 30 customers in Germany. Today more than 2.000 employees of Infosys work for the German customers. Before Germany, Debjit worked in the USA, China, Japan and India. He holds a graduate degree in Applied Physics as well as a MBA (1994). He has more than 10 years of experience in setting up and running offshore business for Indian companies in Japan, USA and Germany.

Reinhard Clemens has been the Member of the board of Management at Deutsche Telekom AG responsible for business customers since 2007, and also holds the position of CEO of T-Systems. Mr. Clemens launched his career as General Manager of the Association for Industry Automation in 1990. In 1994, Mr. Clemens began his career at IBM, holding various positions in sales, service and outsourcing until he left the company in 2001 to join Systematics AG. There he served as member of the board of management responsible for sales. In 2001, Mr. Clemens began working for EDS in Germany. As the chairman of the executive board, he was responsible for sales, business operations and strategy in Central Europe. Mr. Clemens graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, having also worked as a research assistant for the machine tool engineering chair at the same university.

Dr. Manfred Dangelmaier earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Stuttgart University. He has been working at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) since 1986. His main research focus has always been on ergonomics and the interaction between humans and machines. In 2001, he was awarded the doctorate for his thesis on ergonomics. Today, his work is focusing on virtual engineering by means of interactive immersive simulation and virtual reality. He is the director of the Competence Centre for Virtual Environments at the Fraunhofer IAO and the Institute for ergonomics and technology management of the Stuttgart University. In addition, he coordinates the joint project CATER which investigates mass customisation in the automotive industry and is sponsored by the EU.

After 12 years in industry including T-mobile Prof. Dr. Klaus David started working at „Technische Universität Brandenburg". He co-founded lesswire AG, a startup still successful today. He was for about 5 years working in UK, Belgium, USA, and Japan. Since May 2000 he is heading the chair for communication technology (ComTec) at University of Kassel. At ComTec various industrial projects with partners like Nokia, France Telecom, VW are ongoing. The main R&D subjects are mobile networks and applications, in particular „mobile Middleware", „Service Creation", „Personalisation" and „Context Awareness". In total a staff of about 60 are working at ComTec. Prof. David has received more than 10 patents and is active in international organizations such as IEEE and WWRF (Wireless World Research Forum), as reviewer for e.g. the DFG or the EU and as a technology consultant for various companies.

Peter Davies was born in Gibraltar. After working for a while in local government audit he moved to London then to Wales where he worked in a variety of community projects until the arrival of the Internet sparked an interest in using it as a medium for community empowerment through access to information and services. Having worked for several years as an IT teacher and an e-business adviser, he has more recently been engaged in creating innovative ICT projects that will have a significant impact on the development of the local economy. Interested in jazz and world music, languages, travel.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Decker is a professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway, director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute and Cluster Leader of the Semantic Web Cluster within the institute. Previously he worked at ISI, University of Southern California (2 years, Research Assistent Professor and Computer Scientist), Stanford University, Computer Science Department (Database Group) (3 Years, PostDoc and Research Associate), and Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe (4 years, PhD Student and Junior Researcher). His main research field is the Semantic Web.

Hubert Delafon graduated from the University of Lyon with degrees in Electronics and Business Management and worked at a French computer maker as technical assistance on IRIS-80 software until 1972. From 1973 to 1979 he was in Paris, London and Grenoble for Steria (a French software house) and worked on the development of application software and had ICT consultancy missions. From 1980 to 2007 he was employed at Michelin in Clermont-Ferrand, working in different responsibilities (e. g. development of manufacturing or financial applications and implementation of Merise Methodologie, focused on data modelling). From 2002, Hubert Delafon participated in an organisational transformation program which aimed to implement a global ICT department in Michelin, including Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Five objectives were assigned and tracked by a specific Balanced Score Card: define a new governance process with the top management of the company, launch the enterprise architecture studies, outsource infrastructure (network, servers, workstations), develop master applications to be deployed world-wide and harmonize and develop ICT competencies in relationship with the HR department. In this transformation program, until end 2007, he was ICT competency manager, responsible for defining and implementing reference documents regarding competencies, jobs, learning paths and training catalogues, a training plan involving about 1.100 employees and the competence forecasting. From 2006, Hubert Delafon also took part in the CEN Workshop ICT Skills under the responsibility of CIGREF. He was vice-chair of the Steering Committee (from Nov 2007 to September 2008) and expert on the project "European e-Competence Framework". Hubert Delafon retired from January 2008.

Since 2001 Prof. Dr. Claudia Eckert has the position of Director at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT). With a staff of more than 130 employees currently SIT is carrying out application oriented research projects in all areas of IT security. Claudia Eckert is also a Professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt (University of Technology, Darmstadt) and holds the chair of the research group IT-Security. Since 2008 she coordinates and heads the Darmstadt security research centre CASED, in which TU Darmstadt and Fraunhofer SIT are bundling and expanding their security competencies. As a member of various national and international industrial advisory boards and scientific panels she advises business enterprises, trade groups and public authorities in all questions of IT security. In expert panels Claudia Eckert contributes to the shaping of the general technical and scientific conditions in Germany and the design of scientific programmes funded by the EU and/or NATO as well.

Sünne Eichler is the director of e-learning provider WEBACAD, an independent business unit of Management Circle AG in Eschborn. Sünne Eichler has worked in further education for 14 years and apart from her e-learning expertise she has extensive experience in the conceptual design and implementation of attendance seminars, conferences and congresses. She is also a senior jury member of the European E-Learning Award EURELEA.

Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, Full Professor, University of Ottawa Research Chair and recipient of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2007) from Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for achieving international prominence in his field. In 2007 he was also nominated University Research Chair in Ambient interactive media and Application. He also received the Premier Research Excellence Award (PREA Award Round 10 - 2004). He is also the recipient of the 2004 National Capital Institute of Telecommunications (NCIT) New Professorship Incentive Award, and he was elected as IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in 2006. He is the director of the Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory (MCRLab). He is a Theme co-Leader in the LORNET NSERC Research Network. He is Associate Editor of the ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (ACM TOMCCAP), Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, and Guest Editor for several IEEE Transactions and Journals. Dr. El Saddik has been serving on several technical program committees of numerous IEEE and ACM events. He has been the General Chair and / or Technical Program Chair of more than 18 international conferences on collaborative hapto-audio-visual environments, multimedia communications and instrumentation and measurement. He is leading researcher in haptics, collaborative environments and ambient interactive media and communications. He has authored and coauthored two books, 10 book chapters and more than 200 articles. He has received research grants and contracts totaling more than $10 million and has supervised more than 90 researchers. His research has been selected for the BEST Paper Award three times. Dr. El Saddik is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer.

Stefan Engel-Flechsig is practicing lawyer admitted at the bar in Cologne. His special focus of work is with ICT regulation, standardization and strategy in the global networked economy. He is chairman of the CEN/ISSS workshop on electronic invoices since 2001 and has just launched Phase II with a growing number of industry participation. He has held various leading positions in the wireless and the security industry and has been responsible for designing the world's first comprehensive digital signaturs legislation in Germany. Mr. Engel-Flechsig has over 20 years specialized experiences in computer science, law and mobile commerce. He recently helped to create the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) and Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN), a powerful industry consortium of the most prominent mobile operators and leading companies in mobile handsets, applications and technology.

Prof. Dr. Dieter W. Fellner, who was born in Wolfsberg, Austria, studied technical mathematics at the Technical University of Graz. After obtaining his degree he worked as an engineer in a development group on the "MUPID intelligent Videotext decoder." In 1984 he obtained a doctorate in Practical Information Technology and in 1988 qualified as a professor in the field of Applied Information Processing at the Technical University of Graz, where, after holding professorships at Memorial University, Canada, University of Bonn and Technical University of Braunscheig, Germany, he has also been a professor since 2005. There Professor Fellner has set up the new Institute for Computer Graphics and Knowledge Visualisation (CGV) with the focus of its research on traditional computer graphics and digital libraries. Since October 2006 he is Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Graphical Data Processing (IGD) and Professor of Graphical Interactive Systems in the CS Faculty of the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Marc Furrer has been President of the Federal Communications Commission (ComCom) in Switzerland since 2005. The ComCom is the independent regulatory authority for the telecommunications market. Established by the Law on Telecommunications (LTC) in 1997, it consists of seven members nominated by the Federal Council. The Commission is not subject to any Federal Council or Department directives and is independent of the administrative authorities. From 1992 to 2004, Marc Furrer has been President of the Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM) in Switzerland, from 2004 to 2005 director of CEPT. Since 2006 he has a lectureship at the University of St. Gallen.

Karsten Gareis is project manager and senior researcher at empirica, Bonn. His main fields of interest are the way Information Society Technologies impact on work organisation and regional development. He has joined empirica as a researcher and consultant in 1990 and since then has worked extensively on conceptualising, preparing, overseeing and analysing European surveys of the general population and decision-makers, focusing on Information Society phenomena such as multi-locational work, eLearning, eBusiness and co-operation using ICT networks. He was responsible for survey-based research on eLearning and lifelong learning in the European eUSER project, which was completed in April this year. He coordinated the BISER project in FP5 and was project manager of TRANSFORM, an EU funded project which ran until summer 2008 and which looked into transformational use of ICTs in EU regions and its relation to regional innovation cultures, economic performance and social cohesion.

Since 2002, Andreas Geiss works for the European Commission and is responsible for the sector of policy development related to radio spectrum, including mobile communications and adapting radio spectrum policy to convergence trends in the market place. He is also responsible for the availability and provisioning of spectrum usage information. He has a master's degree in electrical engineering with a special emphasis on telecommunications. He started his professional career working for the German government in the area of telecommunications.  From 1994 until 2002 he worked for the European Radiocommunications Office (ERO) where he was project leader for many projects dealing with terrestrial and satellite mobile communications. He was heavily involved in the European preparations for World Radio Conferences and the development of the regulatory environment for IMT-2000/UMTS in Europe.

After earning his information technology degree from the technical university in Darmstadt in 1997, Dr. Stefan Göbel was working as a research associate in the Geographic Information System (GIS) division at the Fraunhofer Institute for Graphic Processing IGD in Darmstadt for five years and was awarded his doctorate for the thesis on „Graphic interactive access to archived geodata".  In 2002, Göbel was appointed director of the Digital Storytelling division at the Centre for Graphic Data Processing (ZGDV) in Darmstadt. He successfully coordinated the EU projects INVISIP and art-E-fact and is currently managing a number of R&D projects (EU, BMBF/BMWA and industry) in the field of storytelling-based edutainment. Since 2003, he has been organising the international storytelling conference TIDSE as well as GameDays in Darmstadt since 2005.  In addition, he has been a jury member of the Serious Games Awards as well as an EU expert in the field of „Intelligent Content and Semantics" since 2007. In 2008 he founded the „InnoGames Forum - Information and cooperation forum for education, health and sports".

After studying economics at Frankfurt University from 1982 to 1993 Gabriele Gottschalk was an instructor in the ITK industry association in statistics and PR. Since 1993 she has been an instructor at the Hessian Department of Trade and Industry in the "IT, telecommunications and mail" unit. She conducts a large number of IT-based funded projects and is responsible for setting up and managing the Hessen-IT hotline.

Sebastian Grünwald studied media & communication science at the University of Augsburg. From 2006 he was an employee at the professorship of media education. There he lectured seminars about adventure game design and interactive storytelling. In 2007, he focused his work about location-based gameplay and created new concepts for interactivity in theme parks, museums and other local spots. Besides his studies he is also a journalist for adventure games, a concept creator and producer of audio plays and a technical consultant for learning software. Further works include quality assurance for adventure games (e.g. "Secret Files: Tunguska") and video production and editing of educational software. He has written and published several books, two about interactive storytelling regarding games and parks. Since 2008, he is Head of Research & Development at "BrainGame Publishing" in Wiesbaden, a leading game developer for edutainment titles.

Maruja Gutiérrez Díaz is Head of Unit "Lifelong learning: innovation and creativity" at DG Education and Culture. She joined the European Commission in 1988, as specialist in introduction and promotion of new technologies. First, as Deputy Head of the Central Library, in charge of its modernisation and networking . Since 1995, as Head of the Publications Unit, member of the Europa server launching team and of its interinstitutional editorial board. Among many other tasks she was responsible for the development of the eLearning program 2004-6.

George Hall has worked on both sides of the public sector/private sector divide, first as a member of the British Diplomatic Service and then as a senior executive in the IT industry. He is now an independent advisor on public policy and governmental affairs, with a special focus on the EU, particularly the Lisbon Agenda, Information Society and Enlargement issues. He has been involved in EU affairs since 1973 and was attached to the UK Prime Minister's Office, working in the Press Office. Following his move to the private sector, he was a founding board member of EICTA, he was EU issue manager on eCommerce in the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) as well as a member of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee of the OECD. In 1994 he was secretary to the Bangemann High Level Group which presented a report "Europe and the global information society" to the European Council which forms the basis of the EU's Information Society policies to this day. He is currently on the Board of the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) a public/private partnership between the UK Government and the private sector players in the "broadband value chain". George Hall is a Patron of erisa. He also chairs the Industry Advisory Panel of DEMO-net, an FP6 Network of Excellence focussing on e-Participation.

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hasenkamp has been a professor of general business studies and information management at Marburg University since 1989. He studied business administration and business education at Bochum and Cologne. He was awarded a PhD and professorship at Cologne and did research on networked systems and workflow management. As a postdoc he was at the San Jose Research Laboratory of IBM. Ulrich Hasenkamp is editor in chief of the scientific magazine Wirtschaftsinformatik. His research work focuses mainly on computer support of cooperative work.

Prof. Dr. Lutz Heuser, Vice President SAP Research and Chief Development Architect at SAP AG, is responsible for the overall research portfolio. Professor Heuser serves on the advisory boards of FhG-Fokus, Berlin, FhG-IPSI, Darmstadt, and is member of acatech, the German Academy of Science and Engineering. He currently serves as Chairman for ISTAG, the European Commission's Information Society Technologies Advisory Group. Professor Heuser is an Adjunct Professor of the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane and holds an Honorary PhD from the Technical University of Dresden.

Dr. Heinrich Hiesinger is a member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Industry Sector. After studying electrical engineering and obtaining his doctorate at the Technical University of Munich, Heinrich Hiesinger began his career at Siemens in 1992 as a project engineer in the Power Transmission and Distribution Group. This was followed by various managerial functions at different company locations, including positions as a member of the Managing Board of P.T. Siemens Indonesia and as head of Siemens Metering AG in Switzerland. From 2000, Heinrich Hiesinger was President of Siemens' Power Transmission and Distribution Group, and from 2003 President and CEO of Siemens Building Technologies AG. In 2007 Heinrich Hiesinger was appointed to the Managing Board of Siemens AG, and at the beginning of 2008 became CEO of the Industry Sector. He also has special responsibility for the Corporate Information Office (CIO).

Prof. Dr. Bernd Holznagel is director of the Institute of Information, Telecommunication and Media Law (ITM) at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. This research institute analysis the civil and public aspects of the legislative novelties in media rights. This new basic approach is supported by the federal state of Northrhine-Westfalia by accepting the institute as a centre of excellence. The ITM is specialised in teaching junior lawyers in media and telecommunications law in Northrhine-Westfalia. Bernd Holznagel is also Member of the advisory council of the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway and member of the "Münchner Kreis", a non-profit supra-national association dedicated to communications research

Gregor Honsel is editor in chief of „Technology Review", a renowned technical magazine issued by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A German edition of the magazine is published by the Heise publishing house. The magazine mainly reports about information-, bio-, energy- and nanotechnology. Gregor Honsel earned his degree for German language and literature studies, journalism and psychology from the Bamberg University and subsequently worked as online editor and editor in chief for „Wirtschaftswoche". From 2003 to 2006, he was the corporate communications manager at Clarity AG before switching to the editorial office of Technology Review which has been managed by him since July 2008.

Gareth Hughes was Secretary General of the IRISI Network and a freelance consultant working in the field of Information Society strategy development. His assignments for the EC include the Thematic Evaluation of the Structural Funds and the Guide to Transnationality in the EQUAL Community Initiative. Since April 2000, he has been CEO of eris@. He was the Project Director for IANIS (2002-04) and for IANIS⁺ (2005-07). He was a member of the Commission's Expert Chamber of the eEurope Advisory Group and participated in the FP6-IST PEARDROP and TRANSFORM projects as well as coordinating the European Broadband Portal (www.broadband-europe.eu).

Gareth Hughes was Secretary General of the IRISI Network and a freelance consultant working in the field of Information Society strategy development. His assignments for the EC include the Thematic Evaluation of the Structural Funds and the Guide to Transnationality in the EQUAL Community Initiative. Since April 2000, he has been CEO of eris@. He was the Project Director for IANIS (2002-04) and for IANIS⁺ (2005-07). He was a member of the Commission's Expert Chamber of the eEurope Advisory Group and participated in the FP6-IST PEARDROP and TRANSFORM projects as well as coordinating the European Broadband Portal (www.broadband-europe.eu).

Gareth Hughes was Secretary General of the IRISI Network and a freelance consultant working in the field of Information Society strategy development. His assignments for the EC include the Thematic Evaluation of the Structural Funds and the Guide to Transnationality in the EQUAL Community Initiative. Since April 2000, he has been CEO of eris@. He was the Project Director for IANIS (2002-04) and for IANIS⁺ (2005-07). He was a member of the Commission's Expert Chamber of the eEurope Advisory Group and participated in the FP6-IST PEARDROP and TRANSFORM projects as well as coordinating the European Broadband Portal (www.broadband-europe.eu).

Claudio Inguaggiato is a Senior Scientific Officer with vast experience in research and innovation project related with ICT technology. After years in research labs, he moved to lead projects at national and international level in areas related to ICT for government and environment. He spent 10 years as managing director in CSP, Innovation ICT agency, devoted to promoting Piedmont competitiveness in a knowledge-based economy and building a pervasive open culture keen to use ICT in work, education, social and cultural life. Now he is in staff to the Piedmont Regional Minister for Research, Innovation and Industry working in the agenda related to innovation policy. Main current areas of interest concern with EU policy integration and clustering initiatives.

Vaclav Jachim has a master´s degree from the Faculty of economics and public administration: He worked as e-learning specialist at the Czech social security administration agency. He is head of the policy section of the ICT department of the Regional Authority of the Vysocina Region. He managed various European projects for the Vysocina region, e.g. ROWANet (regional backbone network), ICHNOS  (SMEs support by creating centre of competence) and IANIS+.

Gerallt Llewelyn Jones is a native of Holyhead. Having graduated in Agricultural Botany from Bangor in 1975 he completed a postgraduate Diploma in Education in 1976.  He taught in Anglesey for several years at primary and secondary level. After three years of working on a government Rural Prosperity he established the local enterprise agency, Menter Môn, in 1995 and has steered its development into a substantial and diverse development deliverer with a turnover of £3.5m per annum and 60 employees. Living in Llanfairpwll and married to Nest, he has three grown up children. His interests include entrepreneurship, art, literature and Welsh history.

Jean-François Kaufeler is graduated engineer from L'Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité (Paris) in 1969. His specialisation is Information Technology, and has started his career in Honeywell Bull in the field of operational research. He joined in 1974 the European Space Agency (ESA) at its Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt. He has designed Mission Control Systems of ESA using different generations of software technology. In 1992 he was nominated Head of the Mission Control Systems Division. Since 2001 he is Head of the Ground Segment Engineering Department in charge of the development of all systems needed on ground to operate missions. This comprises the stations, the control centres and the flight dynamics. He was also Head of the ESOC Establishment in the period 2001 - 2004. In his career he has been very much involved in various International Committees defining Space Data Standards, and in particular in the Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards where he representing ESA.

Prof. Dr. Abdul Waheed Khan is currently Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris. Prior to joining UNESCO, Abdul Wahed Khan served as Vice-Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in New Delhi from 1998 to 2000. From 1986 to 1992 he served as the Founding Director and Professor of the Communications Division of the IGNOU before joining the Commonwealth of Learning in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, firstly as Senior Programme Officer, then as Acting Head of the Communications and Information Technologies Division. During his career he has provided consultancy services to a number of international agencies such as the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, UNFPA and FAO.

He is the recipient of several awards and distinctions such as the "Distinguished Service Award" from Commonwealth of Learning, "India 2000 Millennium Award for Education and World Peace" and "Super Brain of India Gold Award 2000". In January 2005, he became an honorary Doctor of Science, awarded by the Jamia Hamdard University in New Delhi and in 2006 he was awarded the 2006 Dayawati Modi Award for Art, Culture and Education. At the UNESCO his department focus e.g. on promoting equitable access to information and knowledge and strengthening communication and information capacities, especially in developing countries, which aims on reducing the digital divide between countries and population groups.

Michael Kickmeier-Rust is a psychologist and software developer. Since 2001 he is with the Cognitive Science Section at the University of Graz, Austria. His research work basically focuses on the development of intelligent and adaptive educational systems. Michael is vice-chair of the Austrian Aviation Psychology Association, member of several professional associations, author of numerous scientific publications, and he counsels several companies. In the past years Michael increasingly focused on the cognitive-psychological foundations of educational games, particularly the mechanisms of non-invasive assessment and didactical support in educational computer games. Michael was involved in the successful European research project ELEKTRA, dealing with immersive educational computer games. Since 2008 he is the coordinator of the international research project 80Days, which is co-funded by the European Commission. This project specifically aims at intelligent personalization in the context of educational games.

Jacob Funk Kirkegaard has been a research associate at the Peter G. Peterson Institute For International Economics since 2002. Before joining the Institute, he worked with the Danish Ministry of Defense, the United Nations in Iraq, and in the private financial sector. He is a graduate of the Danish Army's Special School of Intelligence and Linguistics; the University of Aarhus in Aarhus, Denmark; and Columbia University in New York. He is author of "The Accelerating Decline in America's High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy" (2007) and coauthor of "Transforming the European Economy" (2004) and assisted with "Accelerating the Globalization of America: The Role for Information Technology" (2006). His current research focuses on European economies and reform, pension systems and accounting rules, demographics, offshoring, high-skilled immigration, and the impact of information technology.

Dr. Michael Klein studied physics and philosophy at the University of Wuppertal and got his diploma in physics at the University of Tübingen in 1987. He made his PhD in theoretical chemistry at the University of Tübingen about „Chaotic Hierarchies" in 1992. He worked as a scientific assistant at the DIFF-German Institute for Distance Learning and Research and at the Chair of Theoretical Chemistry of the University of Tuebingen until 1992. As an art and science assistant he worked at the Städelschule - University of Fine Arts in Frankfurt from 1992 to 1994. In 1994 he became Director of the INM - Institute for New Media in Frankfurt. He was Managing Director of inm-numerical magic gmbh, Frankfurt (1997 -1999) the inm-Network GmbH, Frankfurt (1999-2000), Managing Director Web Business Development of Star-21 Networks AG, Frankfurt (2000-2002) and also Member of the Managing Board of Star-21 Solutions GmbH and of inm-numerical magic gmbh (2001-2002). After a MBO he became owner and Executive Manager of inm-numercial magic gmbh (2002 -2006). Since 2005, he is the Executive Director of the INM - Institute for New Media again. Moreover, he was lecturing as a visiting professor for Digital Arts at the Escola das Artes Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Porto from 2000 to 2005.

Since 1999 Roland Koch is Minister President of Hesse. Since 1998 he has also been chair of the Hessian CDU. In 2006 Roland Koch was elected vice-chairman of the CDU in Germany.

Wolfgang Kopf took on responsibility for the Public & Regulatory Affairs of Deutsche Telekom AG in November 2006. He reports directly to the CEO. Since 2002 he has been responsible for the Public & Regulatory Affairs Department at T-Mobile International. Wolfgang Kopf studied Arts and Law at the Universities of Mainz, Speyer and London, specialising in European and Administrative Law. He worked for a leading international law firm and the European Commission. Wolfgang Kopf joined Deutsche Telekom's International Division in 1995 working in international business development and M&A. In 1996 he was named head of Deutsche Telekom's Competition Law department and in 2000, head of International Government Affairs, responsible for European, US and international regulatory affairs and competition law. He is the Convenor of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) Working Group on Competition Policy dealing with the current reform process of European competition law.

Dr. Brigitte Krenn is a member of Research Studios Austria Forschungsgesellschaft and head of Research Studio Smart Agent Technologies. She is also member of the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (ÖFAI), of the European Network of Excellence HUMAINE, of euCognition. She coordinates the European Cognitive Systems project Rascalli and the Austrian Semantic Systems project Sempre. She finally is the SAT site coordinator of the EU-project mobile Game-Based Learning (mGBL).

Since 2000 Matthias Kurth is the President of the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway in Bonn. The Agency's task is to provide, by liberalisation and deregulation, for the further development of the electricity, gas, telecommunications and postal markets and also of the railway infrastructure market. For the purpose of implementing the aims of regulation, the Agency has effective procedures and instruments at its disposal including also rights of information and investigation as well as the right to impose graded sanctions. From 1994 to 1999 Matthias Kurth served as State Secretary in the Hesse Ministry of Economics, Transport and Urban and Regional Development. He was also Representative of the state of Hesse in the Regulatory Council for Posts and Telecommunications, cooperation in framing the Telecommunications Act. The European Regulators Group has elected Matthias Kurth for Chair 2009. Regarding the Review of the Telecom rules, he supports the co-operation of the nationals Regulators in the European Union.

Marius Kwasny has been working in the division for business customers of Deutsche Telekom AG, T-systems in the field of human resources management since 2001, developing and implementing human resources development systems. Prior to this appointment, the graduate engineer and business manager worked in several locations of Deutsche Telekom, including the divisions of Technical Sales Consulting, Public Relations, Quality Management and People Development.

Klaus Landefeld  is technical expert, specialized in planning and management of WANs, data centers and IP services. Since 2001 he works on the realisation of Next Generation Networks. His company Mega Access GmbH offers rural broadband solutions. Klaus Landefeld is engaged in national and European ICT regulation, is member of the management of eco (association of german internet enterprises) and also member of advisory board of Hessen-IT. He also belongs to ATRT, the committee for technical regulation of the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway (Bundesnetzagentur).

Andreas Lange holds a degree in religious and theatre studies. He works as exhibitor, author and lecturer for the digital entertainment culture. From 1994-95, he was a reviewer of the entertainment software self-control (USK); since 1997, he has been the director of the computer game museum in Berlin and in 2002 he cofounded DiGA e.V. - The Digital Game Archive. Lange is the curator of the exhibition pong.mythos among other things and author of the books "Spielmaschinen (game machines)" (Berlin, 2002) and "pong.mythos" (Berlin, 2006). His essays were published in "Game on. The History and Culture of Videogames" (London 2002), "M_ARS. Art and War." (Austria 2003) or "See? I'm real ... Multidisciplinary access to computer games using ›Silent Hill‹ as an example" (Germany 2005) or "Space Time Play" (Switzerland 2007). He is lecturing and teaching e.g. for the Games Academy Berlin or the Potsdam University. Andreas Lange is a member of the project "nestor" which is financed by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), the German competence network for digital long-term archiving and AG Games of the Association for media studies (GfM).

Pierre Langer is the founder and managing director of Dynamedion. Together with his team, he is responsible for more than 200 projects since the foundation in 2001, including the first live orchestra productions for a videogame which were recorded at the Fraunhofer Institute in the new „Wavefield format". During and after the completion of his studies of classical music at Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz, the music composition graduate worked for various band projects while recording three CD productions. From 1998 to 2001, Pierre Langer was lecturer for „New music media" at the Peter-Cornelius Conservatory in Mainz. In 2003, one of his compositions was performed in the world-renowned "Gewandhaus in Leipzig" concert hall on the occasion of the first symphonic video game concert in Europe. The reference list includes a number of awards, including „Best German Game Soundtrack" (2007, 2005, 2004, Berlin), the „Cable Television Performance Award" (2007, SESAC/ USA), the „Award for musical art" (2000, Bingen), the „Peter-Cornelius Conservatory Award" (1996, Mainz), the „Best Performance Award - Coca Cola City Rock" (1995, Frankfurt) as well as the „Best Live Act Award" (1994, Bonn).

Markus René Lause earned his degree in business administration from the Cologne University and an MBA from the Henley Management College in the UK. Prior to his appointment with Vodafone, Markus Lause was the founder and managing director of the internet agency webactiv, operating Germany's most successful youth community on www.party.de until the company was sold in 2001. During his six year employment with Vodafone D2 GmbH, Markus Lause held a variety of positions in the field of consumer and business marketing at home and abroad. He is currently in charge of the marketing for business customers in Germany at Vodafone D2.

Dr. Stephan Lechner has been Director of the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC) in Italy since 2007. The mission of the IPSC is to provide research results and to support EU policy-makers in their effort towards global security and towards protection of European citizens from accidents, deliberate attacks, fraud and illegal actions against EU policies. Before that, he worked at Siemens research and at E-Plus and at o2. Stephan Lechner was also member of the European Security Research Advisory Board (ESRAB) and member of the Permanent Stakeholder Group of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA).

Robert Leeb is a PhD-candidate at Graz University of Technology (TUG), Austria, before that he studied electrical and biomedical engineering at TUG and Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom. During and after his studies he worked as a researcher in the area of fingerprint recognition and in the development of high-security chip cards. At the Brain-Computer Interface Laboratory (BCI-Lab) of Prof. Pfurtscheller he investigated during his thesis the control of virtual environments by thoughts. His research interests include brain-computer interfaces, biosignal processing and virtual reality.

After Jörn Lehmann graduated in mechanical engineering (specialised in production engineering), he worked in the construction department for a geared motor company as development engineer. Afterwards, he worked for the "Forschungsvereinigung Antriebstechnik e. V." (FVA, Research network drive engineering) and supervised ten study groups and different research projects. Since 2000, he is in charge of the internet portal VDMA-e-market. As project leader, he is involved in bodies of eCl@ss e. V., DIN and the advisory board PROZEUS. In 2008, Jörn Lehmann changed his position within VDMA to VFI (VDMA Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Innovation GmbH) and now works for the research project Theseus in "Use Case Processus".

Sandra Lotti has been working since 2001 at Regione Emilia-Romagna, in the Department for the development for regional ICT. She is  coordinator of the Regional ICT Plan 2007-2009 and in charge of European relations/projects in ICT area . She has been member of the ERIS@ board of Directors for a couple of years and represents Emilia-Romagna in the network. Sandra Lotti co-ordinates the „Regional Centre for Competence on e-Gov", a structure of co-operation between national, regional and local government for the implementation of e-Gov and Information Society locally: amongst its activities is an observatory for the development of the IS including a series of  benchmark surveys on the development of information society in Emilia-Romagna.

Luis Casas Luengo is General Director of the foundation for the Development of the Science and Technology in Extremadura, FUNDECYT and President of eris@. He was director of the PRAI eExtremadura, Centre for New Information Society Activities. He worked at the Regional Ministry on Education, Science and Technology. Extremadura, Spain. Until October 2001 he  was Head of Office of the Extremadura Liaison Office to the European Communities, Brussels. From 1994 to 1995, he was assistant at the European Affairs Service, Extremadura, Regional Government, Mérida (Spain). He has a graduate degree in Law from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Louis Marinos is currently acting Head of ENISA Technical Department, senior expert at ENISA in the area of Risk Management with extensive experience in the management and operation of security and the coordination of European expert groups. His expertise is among others on Risk analysis and Risk Management, Security management of critical applications in the areas of financial institutions and B2B, systems security with focus on Internet security and security in banking applications and operating systems. He is also consulting major firms in the financial, telecommunication and commercial sectors.

Dr. Mathias Mertens is a research associate at the Institute for Media and Theatre of the Hildesheim University. His professional focus is on aesthetics of new media, computer game history, changing media discourses and authorship. From 2003 to 2005, he was a member of the  „Transnational media events from the early modern period to the present" graduate course of lectures and at the same time a research associate at the Centre for Media and Interactivity at the Gießen University. Before that, Mathias Mertens was in charge of lecturing film and computer game history at the Hannover and Hildesheim Universities for several years. In addition, he was the co-organiser and moderator of the "Literarischer Salon (literary parlour)" stage talk show in Hannover. He published articles about the digital culture in Spex, Freitag, De:Bug, GEE, Financial Times Germany etc. and is the author of the books entitled „Wir waren Space Invaders (We were space invaders)", the first German cultural history of computer gaming, and „Kaffeekochen für Millionen (Making coffee for millions)", the first non-technical internet story. Moreover, Mathias Mertens appears as computer game expert in shows aired on the channels HR, WDR, BR, ORF, 3sat, RTL and DW-TV.

Jean Miller is Head of German Business Development at Linden Lab. Before that she directed International Initiatives at Linden Lab, where she was responsible for driving the evolution of the rapidly growing international community of residents of Second Life. Her work includes a strategic focus on localization, cultural specific content creation, education, and business development. Miller holds a B.S. from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and dual MSc/M.A. degrees in Global Communication from both the London School of Economics and Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, where she also directed the "Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games" competition. Prior to her work at the Annenberg School and Linden Lab, Miller was an International Operations Specialist for LucasArts Entertainment and worked in Capital Markets for Charles Schwab & Company.

Wafa Moussavi-Amin is the General Manager of IDC Central Europe, and responsible for all IDC operations in Germany and Switzerland. From 2001-2003, Moussavi-Amin was Regional Business Manager Germany & Switzerland, with responsibilities for corporate business planning and developing as well as delivering market research offerings for the region. Prior to this role, he was in charge of research and consulting in Germany and Switzerland. In addition, he held an EMEA position, coordinating cross-country consulting projects. Mr. Moussavi-Amin has 14 years experience of the IT research and advisory services business. He is well known in the IT industry for his expertise in German and Swiss Markets, Software, Vertical Markets and the ICT market research in general. Moussavi-Amin studied Law and Economics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main.

Dr.-Ing. Johannes Müller is working as "Senior Manager Knowledge Management' at the International Headquarters of Siemens Building Technologies in Zug, Switzerland. Since January 2005, he develops and administrates the company-internal and globally deployed knowledge management (KM) application "References@BT". Besides content management and community support, his tasks also include the maintenance of this web application, which is - as proprietary development - planned, implemented and continuously enhanced by himself. In 1990, Johannes Müller finished his studies of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Munich University of Technology. At this university's Institute of Human-Machine-Communication, he received his Ph.D. in 1997 with the topic "The semantic structure for representing the contextual meaning within speech understanding applications". His professional carreer started in 1998 at Siemens Information and Communication Networks, where he conducted trainings for Siemens' employees and customers concerning management systems for large telecommunication networks. From June 2000 until December 2004, he belonged to the central KM team at the International Headquarters of Siemens Communications in Munich, where he was responsible for the company-internal and globally deployed KM application "Com ShareNet" (previously named "ICN/ICM ShareNet").

While studying at the Ludwigsburg University of Education Roman Müller was already involved in e-learning activities, e.g. in the "Virtual University / VIB", Socrates and Erasmus projects. In 1999 Müller moved to Klett Verlag and the mathematics / sciences editorial department in multimedia and software. After a further four years at the Klett group Roman Müller started his own business - didaktech. He is still the managing director there today. Müller is also a director of the Frankfurt content broker QBI Holding GmbH, as well as at the InnoGames-Forum of ZGDV, where he is responsible for education.

Dr. Henrik Müller, managing editor of "manager magazine" since 2004, often surprises with unusual views on the economy, politics and society. The 41-years-old economist has repeatedly won various prizes, among them Georg-von-Holtzbrinck award and Friedrich-Vogel award. Müller is mainly occupied with currency, labor, economy and structural economic trends and has written several books, recently e.g. "Wirtschaftsirrtümer" (economic errors) and „Wirtschaftsfaktor Patriotismus" (economy factor patriotism).

Lennart Nacke has taught many game engineering and design courses for higher education around the world. During the completion of his Master's thesis on the topic of "Facilitating the Education of Game Development", he developed new teaching models and software for iterative game prototyping, while also working freelance as a junior game designer for casual games. He later carried on to pursue his PhD in Digital Game Development at the Blekinge Institute of Technology - Game and Media Arts Laboratory in Sweden, where he is working as a PhD Candidate and Game Designer within an EU-financed research project investigating the fun of gaming.

Prof. Dr. Gert Pfurtscheller received his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria. He has been Full Professor of Medical Informatics and Professor of Brain Computer Interfaces at the Graz University of Technology (TUG) and is Adjunct Professor since October 2006 at TUG. He was Head of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Medical Informatics and Neuroinformatics and is Founding Director of the Brain-Computer Interface Laboratory (BCI-Lab) at the TUG. He has authored more than 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals and published four books. He was honoured by election as a member of the Austrian Academy of Science.

Dr. Bernd Pill is Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at Vodafone D2 GmbH (former Mannesmann Mobilfunk GmbH) and also Member of the Executive Committee and the Vodafone Group Legal Board. Before that he headed the department Legal and HR at Mannesmann Eurokom GmbH. From 1990 to 1994 he worked as a company lawyer at Mannesmann AG. He studied law in Kiel, Lausanne and Freiburg and received a doctor's degree in Münster and Cambridge. At Vodafone D2 GmbH he is, among others, engaged in the frequency regulation decisions in the telecommunication sector.

Dr. Jorge Posada holds Ph.D. in Engineering from the TU Darmstadt, and a Mechanical Engineering degree (honors) from the EAFIT University. From 1997 to 2001 he worked as researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics. In 2001 he joined the INI-GraphicsNet Technological Centre VICOMTech (San Sebastian, Spain) as Associate Director in 2001. He works in the field of computer graphics for industrial applications He has several publications and is member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Computer & Graphics Journal (Elsevier).

Spencer Prewitt is an accomplished senior executive and business adviser with a strong background in business development and regeneration. Possesses an excellent understanding of the regional Government and EU structures and the needs of businesses. Designed and managed the delivery of UK Government and European Funding programmes to over 15,000 small businesses throughout the East Midlands creating millions in added value. Designed and led 23 projects delivered by The NE Group since 2003 including one that was identified by the EU as being within the top 20 most innovative projects in Europe during 2006.

Sarianne Reinkkala is CEO of Finncontainers Oy Ltd. Finncontainers logistic services include container sales, leasing and transportation. Today it is one of the biggest container companies in Finland. It was founded in 1996 as a family company. The innovative company's logistic services include container sales, domestic leasing and transportation. Sarianne Reinikkala began working in the container business in 1989. She is member of the Harbor Committee of the Helsinki Region Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the eBusiness Forum of Finnish Information Society Development Centre (TIEKE) and member of the Technology Commission of Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes). Before that she was Vice-chairman of the Association of Helsinki Entrepreneurs.

André Richier is Principal Administrator at the European Commission in Brussels within the Directorate General Enterprise and Industry (ICT for Competitiveness and Innovation Unit). He is responsible for policy issues relating to the competitiveness of the ICT industry and activities relating to ICT and human capital, including the European e-Skills Forum. He was the 2002-2003 EU Fellow attached to the LBJ School of public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. He played a leading role in the preparation of the "eLearning: Designing Tomorrow's Education" Initiative and Action Plan in 2001 within the Multimedia Unit of the Directorate General Education and Culture. In the 90s, he was in charge of research projects in the field of multimedia within the European Strategic Programme for Research in Information Technology (ESPRIT). Prior to joining the Commission in 1994, he held sales and marketing positions in the ICT industry (IBM and Bull)

Dr. Rolf Riemenschneider is Project Officer at the European Commission, Directorate Information Society. Before joining the Commission in 2001 he worked as an engineer for consulting and project management on behalf of the German government at the Federal Ministry of Education and Science at VDI/VDE Technologiezentrum Informationstechnik GmbH in Berlin in the following areas: Microsystems technology, multimedia and E-Commerce, and broadband and mobile communications and services. With transition to the 6^th Framework Programme of the European Commission in 2003, he joined the unit Embedded Systems that has been established to support the emergence of Ambient Intelligence as a focal point of R&D policy in FP6. He was working in the domain of networked embedded systems and more specifically in the area of wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring, assisted living, building automation and future manufacturing. Since 2007, he joined the unit ICT for Inclusion for living for the ageing society - including the novel research programme on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) as a joint undertaking between the Member States and the Commission - as well as assistive solutions with brain-computer interaction and embedding accessibility in mainstream ICT.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. August-Wilhelm Scheer has been president of the Federal Association for Information Management and New Media (BITKOM) since 2007. He was appointed vice president of the Federal Association of the German Industry (BDI) in the same year. From May 1975 to February 2005, he was the director of the Institute for Business Informatics in the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) at the Saarland University with a research focus on information and business process management for industrial, service and administrative applications. Since March 2005, he has been a professor with advisory capacity at the DFKI. In 1984, he founded the international software and consulting firm IDS Scheer AG, which now has subsidiaries in 27 countries. The book " ARIS Architektur integrierter Informationssysteme - Grundlagen der Unternehmensmodellierung (ARIS architecture of integrated information systems - principals of corporate modelling)"  was published in 1991. It contains the basic concept of the ARIS tool sets developed by IDS. Today he is the chair of the supervisory board of both companies. Since November 1999, he has been the authorised representative for innovation, technology and research of the prime minister of Saarland.

From 2002 to 2008 and from 1988 to 1998, August-Wilhelm Scheer was a member of the supervisory board of SAP AG in Walldorf. From 2004 to 2005, he was a member of the board of trustees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIG) and since 2005, he has been a member of the senate of the Fraunhofer Association. From 2006 to 2008, he was a member of the Council for Innovation and Growth of the Federal Government.

August-Wilhelm Scheer has published several book series and magazines, is the author of more than 300 magazine articles and more than ten books, including the standard references „Wirtschaftsinformatik: Referenzmodelle für industrielle Geschäftsprozesse (Business informatics: reference models for industrial business processes)" and „ARIS: Vom Geschäftsprozeß zum Anwendungssystem (ARIS: from business process to user system)" as well as „ARIS: Modellierungsmethoden, Metamodelle, Anwendungen (ARIS: modelling methods, metamodels, applications)".

Prof. Dr. Joachim Scherer is partner at the Frankfurt office of Baker & McKenzie, an international law firm with more than 3.600 lawyers in 38 countries. Baker & McKenzie has a particularly strong reputation in the areas of telecoms and IT. Operating from its hub in Frankfurt, the telecoms team continues to excel in regulatory matters, providing advice to companies as well as to the government.  Joachim Scherer studied law in Frankfurt, Lausanne and at the Columbia University Law School in New York. In Frankfurt he habilitated in 1995. He is Head of Baker & McKenzie's Eurepean and Global Telecommunications Law Practice Groups and assisted in international telecommunications projects and privatisations in Germany, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America. Joachim Scherer has published numerours books and legal articles on topics of national, European and international public law, especially environmental, telecommunications, and EU law. He is editor of "Telecommunication Laws in Europe". 

Dr. Bernd Schuster studied geography at the Technical University of Munich. In 1985 he worked at the Munich Transport and Tariff Association (MVV) and then as a professor of transport and urban planning at TU Munich until 1992. Since 1992 he has been at the Hessian Ministry of Economics, Transport and Regional Development in Wiesbaden, where his chief responsibility is transport management. Bernd Schuster has been awarded the Dr.-Friedrich-Lehner prize.

Axel J. Schwarz is a graduate industrial engineer and certified senior software IT architect (integration discipline). He has worked for IBM Deutschland GmbH since 2002.

Dr. Andreas Schwarz has been a cabinet member of Günter Verheugen, vice president of the European Committee and EU commissioner for companies and the industry. In this function, he is responsible for the Lisbon strategy, international trade, regulatory cooperation with Asia as well as the information and communication industry. Before that he was working for the EU head office for trade and development and for the German Association for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). Andreas Schwarz studied business informatics and economics at the Bamberg University and the Union College Schenectady (USA) and received his doctorate at the professorship for international economic relationships.  

Gabriella Simor works at the Prime Minister's Office, Hungary, and is also representative to the European Commission's e-Inclusion Work Group. In this function she is engaged in the preparation of analytic documents on the development of ICT policy with a view to regional policy perspectives and in the monitoring of and advisory on EU funding opportunities in the field of information society, innovation and R&D. As an expert to Dr. Szalay she was concerned with the drafting of the official position of the Committee of Regions on E-Inclusion Commission Communication. From 2003 to 2006 she was European Policy Officer at the Ministry of Informatics and Communications, Hungary and before that she served as a Junior PR Consultant at Hill & Knowlton in Budapest. There she was engaged in the management of the European Commission's pre-accession communication strategy in Hungary and in the preparation of reports on the evaluation and monitoring of EU communication projects. She also conducts research on international scopes of the digital divide.

Neal Skelton is Head of Professional Services at ITS (UK); a post he assumed following service as a senior police officer with diverse specialist expertise ranging from Roads Policing, CID, counter terrorist operations, air support and most significantly a 4 year secondment to the Home Office Scientific Development Branch as a Police Advisor. Amongst other areas of responsibility he became an influential driver for the promotion of ITS technologies to the Home Office (equivalent to the Federal Ministry of the Interior) and Police Service, including ACPO ITS. Prior to his police service Neal was an Officer in the Royal Marines Commandos for 5 years. As Head of Professional Services at ITS (UK), Neal is responsible for providing the technical expertise needed to fulfil ITS (UK)'s aims to increase the take-up of ITS solutions within the UK, and promote UK ITS capability abroad. In addition Neal is a Director of ESVA (European Secure Vehicle Alliance) and innovITS (ITS Centre of Excellence).

Prof. Dr. Ralf Steinmetz worked for over nine years in industrial research. Since 1996, he is head of the Multimedia Communications lab, at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. From 1997 to 2001 he directed a Fraunhofer Institute. In 1999, he founded the Hessian Telemedia Technology Competence Center. His thematic focus is multimedia communications. With over 400 refereed publications he became ICCC Governor (1999); was awarded as the ranking of Fellow of both, the IEEE (1999) and the ACM (2002). Since 2005, as member of the Hessian technology advisory board he is appointed as the advisor for information und communications technology by the Hessian government.

Johann Steszgal is President of PIN-SME, the Pan European ICT and eBusiness network for SMEs. One of the main goals of this organisation is to establish an ideal framework (including eSkills) for ICT-SMEs in Europe. Johann Steszgal started his professional career as an assistant professor at the University of Economics and Business Administration in Vienna. His main focus was on Computer Sciences and it's applications for businesses. Until today he remains in touch with the Austrian computer science community, still holding lectures at various universities - both public and private. In 2005 he published the book "Telework for SMEs" in Austria. He then became Managing Director of several different IT-companies as well as of a consulting company responsible for innovation and internationalization, IT and telecommunication, quality and risk management systems. Since 2007 he owns a small IT-company specialized in ICT-consulting, ICT-training and programming for the telecommunication, tourism and health industries. Mr Steszgal also holds positions as Chairman of the Division of Information and Consulting, Burgenland, Austria as well as an International Representative of the Austrian IT-businesses nominated by UBIT of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce.

In 1996, Sven Stillich founded the „ Netzliteratur (Network literature)" mailing list. In the same year, he was an award recipient on the occasion of the 1st internet literacy competition organised by ZEIT magazine and IMB with his project „verwunschlos". In 1997, he earned his M.A. in linguistics and attended the Henri-Nannen school for journalists in 1999. In 2000, he became an editor with stern magazine. In 2002, he was co-founder of the „Spiel *: Plattform für Computerspielkultur (game*: platform for computer game culture)" mailing list. Sven Stillich is the author of the book entitled „Second Life. Wie virtuelle Welten unser Leben verändern (Second life. How virtual; worlds change our lives)", published by Ullstein in 2007. Since 2008, he has been a freelance text director with GEE magazine.

Karl-Heinz Streibich assumed the position of CEO of Software AG in October 2003 and is also responsible for the departments Strategic Marketing, Human Resources, Internal Audit, Legal Affairs as well as Corporate Communications. Before joining Software AG, he served as deputy chairman of the board at T-Systems GmbH. Mr. Streibich launched his career in 1981 at Dow Chemical Company in Rheinmünster, Germany. His next assignment took him to ITT Industries in London in 1984. He then joined ITT-SEL AG (now Alcatel/SEL AG) in Germany as director of PC Systems. In 1989, he joined Daimler Benz AG, where he served in several executive positions. These included deputy member of the board at AEG Olympia Office GmbH, chairman of the board of debis Systemhaus DCS (Distributed Computing Services) GmbH and VP of sales and services at debis Systemhaus CCS (Computer and Communications Services).  In 1996, he assumed a seat on the debis Systemhaus GmbH board of directors. From 2000 to 2002, he served as chairman and played the decisive role in the merger of debis Systemhaus GmbH with T-Systems GmbH.  Mr. Streibich obtained a degree in communications engineering in Offenburg, Germany.  

Dr. rer. nat. Dr. phil. Norbert Streitz is a Senior Scientist and Strategic Advisor with 25 years of experience in information and communication technology. In 1997, he initiated and then managed the research division "AMBIENTE - Smart Environments of the Future" at Fraunhofer IPSI in Darmstadt, Germany, where he also teaches at the Department of Computer Science of the Technical University. Before joining IPSI in 1987, he was an assistant professor at the Technical University (RWTH) Aachen. He was a post-doc fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, a visiting scholar at Xerox PARC and at the Intelligent Systems Lab of ETL-MITI, Tsukuba Science City, Japan. He is the Chair of the Working Group "Ambient Computing and Communication Environments" of the EU-funded Coordinated Action InterLink, exploring future trends in ICT, as well as the Co-Chair of the ERCIM Working Group "Smart Environments and Systems for Ambient Intelligence (SESAMI)". Previously, he was the Chair of the Steering Group of the EU-funded initiative "The Disappearing Computer" with 17 multinational interdisciplinary projects. His research interests include Ambient/Pervasive/Ubiquitous Computing, Interaction and Experience Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Hypertext/Hypermedia, CSCW, and Cognitive Science. He has published/edited 17 books and (co)authored more than 110 technical papers. His co-edited book on "The Disappearing Computer" was published last year as a "state-of-the-art survey" by Springer. He serves regularly on the relevant program committees and on editorial boards (e.g., ACM TOCHI, JAISE). He is often invited to present keynote speeches and tutorials to scientific as well as commercial events in Europe, USA, South America, Singapore, Malaysia, Hongkong, China, Korea and Japan.

Prof. Dr. Didier Stricker is member of the Management Board as well as Scientific Director at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) in Kaiserslautern where he leads the research department „Augmented Vision". He is also Professor at the Computer Science Department of the University of Kaiserslautern, where he holds a chair on Visual Computing. His research interests are virtual and augmented reality, computer vision, edutainment, and multimedia information services.

Dr. Rudolf W. Strohmeier has been working as Head of the Cabinet of Viviane Reding, member of the European Commission for information society and media. He studied Law and Economics in Würzburg and Bonn. From 1980-1985 he worked as civil servant at the Bavarian Liaison Office in Bonn. Afterwards he became detached civil servant to the European Commission. He established the Bavarian Information Office in Brussels in 1987 and was its first Director. Rudolf W. Strohmeier worked for different Private Offices of EU-Commissioners. From 1987 to 1995 for Peter M. Schmidhuber, afterwards he served from 1995 to 2000 as Deputy Head of Commissioner Franz Fischler and then he became Head of Division in the Director General Agriculture. He was responsible for relations to the other EU-Institutions and agricultures NGOs. From 2003 to 2004 he was adviser in the Private Office of the President of the EU Commission, Romano Prodi, responsible for Industry, Environment, Public Health, Agriculture, Fisheries and Consumer Protection. Subsequent to this he was first adviser and then director of DG AGRI/B responsible for Communication, Documentation and Relations to other EU-institutions.

Phil Stubbington began his career in telecommunications in 1975 after graduating from the University of London's King's College with a modern languages degree. After a period in BT's UK Headquarters working on UK policy issues he moved in 1981 to BT's International Division working in product management on data services, then international business and marketing strategy, and finally as product manager of BT's international switched transit businesses. In 1996 he moved to BT's Regulatory Affairs Department, as Manager International Regulation. In this role he liaised with the UK regulator, OFTEL, on the deregulation of international facilities operation. He also worked extensively on the UK and US regulatory aspects of BT's transatlantic merger and joint ventures activity. After periods as Head of Regulatory Consultancy and then Head of International Regulatory Policy in BT Group Regulatory Affairs, he joined BT Global Services in December 2004 as Head of Regulation for Germany, Benelux and Central and Eastern Europe.

Patrick Sullivan is a business professional with several years' senior management experience having spent 15 years in the private sector (software industry) & more than 18 years in the public sector performing a range of ICT, Creative Industries and economic development related roles. Patrick has extensive experience of working with a wide range of stakeholder groups from the private, public, academic and voluntary sectors at policy, strategy and operational levels to achieve a common goal and jointly create innovative initiatives.

Paula Swatman, Professor of Information Systems at University of South Australia has recently taken on a new role, in which she will be spearheading the Digital Economy Initiative for the School of CIS, with the aim of developing key capabilities to enable Australian businesses increase their share of emerging global markets. Her background lies in the areas of Information Systems and the Digital Economy. She has over 25 years academic & industry experience in the areas of E-Business, Internet Commerce and global systems - and spent over 10 years working in the banking and information technology industries and developing her interest in E-Commerce, prior to returning to academic life in the late 1980's. This combination of perspectives has led to a research focus on the strategic implications of the new economy for large and small organisations - particularly those concerning the integration of E-Business into organisational practice and systems.

Dr. András Szalay is member of the Comittee of the Regions (CoR), which is a body of the European Union (EU) established in 1994 by the Maastricht treaty. It represents the sub-national regions of the EU in the EU legislative process in a consultative manner similar to the Economic and Social Committee. The CoR is the political assembly that provides local and regional authorities with a voice at the heart of the European Union. It aims at increasing the participation of European regions in community life. The CoR, whose seat is in Brussels, is composed of about 350 representatives of regional and local governments. András Szalay is Representative of the Settlement Veszprém, Hungary. Since 2007 the diplom-engineer and economist works as County Service Chairman at the MAG-Hungarien Centre of Economic Development and supervises enterprise development projects. Prior that he was among others regional director of the IT-Information Society Kht. and managing director of the Veszprém Regional Innovation Centre. Since 2007 he has been full member of the EU Committee of Regions in Brussels and rapporteur in the field e-Inclusion.

Prof. Wolfgang Thaenert is the European Affairs Commissioner of the Directors' Conference of the German regulatory authorities for commercial broadcasting (DLM). Upon conclusion of his law studies, he held various positions in the Lower Saxony state administration. From 1984-1989, he was director of the Lower Saxony regulatory authority for commercial broadcasting, and has held the same position at the Hesse authority since 1989. In this capacity, he was chairman of the Joint Unit for advertising issues of the DLM from 1993-1995 and chairman of the Joint Unit for pluralism issues from 1995 to 1996. From 2001 to 2003 he chaired the joint unit for advertising, legal, European and administrative issues of the DLM and was Chairman of the DLM during the period 2003-2005. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Commission for the protection of minors in the media of the regulatory authorities (KJM). Wolfgang Thaenert became an honorary professor for media law at the University of Kassel in 2003.

Vincent Tilman works as an advisor at Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, which represents over 18 million member enterprises in Europe. He is in charge of the Information Technology; Innovation, Research and Development policy portfolios. Since 2006, he is also Managing Director of ChamberSign, a European association promoting e-Signature. He was previously a researcher at CRID, the Centre de Recherches Informatique et Droit, where he was conducting research on information technology law with a focus on Internet self-regulation issues, such as codes of conduct, labellisation and ADR. Mr. Tilman holds a degree in law and a Master's in Specialised Studies in communication and information technology, law and management. He is also specialised in negotiation and mediation and has been accredited as a CEDR mediator in 2004.

Dr. Marianne Treschow is the general-director of the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS), which monitors the electronic communications and postal sectors in Sweden, including telephony, the Internet and radio. The Agency works with consumer and competition issues, efficient utilisation of resources and secure communications. Mrs Treschow is also chairman of the Radio Spectrum Policy Group. The RSPG shall adopt opinions, which are meant to assist and advise the Commission on radio spectrum policy issues, on co-ordination of policy approaches and, where appropriate, on harmonised conditions with regard to the availability and efficient use of radio spectrum necessary for the establishment and functioning of the internal market. Mrs Treschow served in severeal leading positions, e.g. at the Swedish National Space Board and at the Swedish Research Council. Since the liberalisation of the telecom market, Sweden shows one of the highest growth rates in ICT-using. Sweden leads all countries in Internet penetration, more than 70% have access to broadband connections.

From 1973 until 1979 Ossi Urchs studied Philosophy, Media-Science and Political Science in Cologne and Munich where he graduated from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität with M. A. Since 1980 he has worked as writer and director for public and commercial television, since 1992 he has worked in consulting and development of interactive communications for the Internet and ITV. Since 1982 he owns F.F.T. MedienAgentur together with Sigi Höhle. Since the beginning of the 90ties F.F.T. has helped different enterprises and organizations to develop their communication strategies in interactive media. F.F.T has developed various internet applications. 1997 Ossi Urchs developed “NetNews”, the first German Internet-Business TV-Magazine for the German News-Channel N-TV.

Dr. Jasper van Loo is project manager at Cedefop, where is is responsible for the Cedefop research arena (Cedra), which focuses on skill mismatch and labour market research. He is also involved in research on vocational education and training issues. Before joining Cedefop, he was affiliated with the Researchcentre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where he was actively involved in research on the individual outcomes of training investments, skill obsolescence, skill and competence measurement and human resource development. Jasper van Loo has published a number of articles in both academic journals and policy-oriented publications and regularly acts as a reviewer for academic articles.

Dr. Uwe Vetterlein studied economics at the University of Tübingen. At the University of Tübingen he joined an interdisciplinary research project "International economic integration" from 1986 - 1990. In 1989/90 he was seconded as national expert to the European Commission at Brussels. He completed his doctorate in 1991. In the same year he joined the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Karlsruhe as Head of Department (economics, regional development, transport). Additionally he was in charge as Managing Director of IHK-Unternehmens- und Technologieberatung Karlsruhe GmbH, a service subsidiary for technical oriented start-ups. In 1995 he moved to the CCI of Cologne, there he headed the Department "Regional development policy, business services, Trade and Infrastructure". 2004 he was appointed General Manager of the CCI Darmstadt Rhein Main Neckar.

Heino von Müller, leader of the OECD Berlin Centre, represents the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Germany. Beside of this office in Germany there are subsidiaries in Washington, Mexico-City and Tokyo, which organise the press- and PR-service in their countries. They are also contact point for all communications to policy and media. Heino von Meyer served for over ten years in several departments of the OECD headquarters in Paris, e.g. in the Environment Directorate. From 1990 to 1999 he managed ProRural Europe (Production Opportunities for Small Rural Producers). Besides his function as the leader of the OECD Berlin Centre, he got a longterm experience by consulting different Directorates-Generals of the EU-commission (e.g. on the structural fonds). From 1981 to 1990 he was assistant leader of the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt.

Jeremy Ward has worked for Symantec since October 2000.  He is responsible for the development of special projects and services for Symantec Global Services, for promoting Symantec as an information security risk management company and for liaison on information security issues with a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations.  He was responsible for BS7799 certification of Symantec's Security Operating Centres worldwide. Before joining Symantec Jeremy worked for the UK Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. Jeremy contributes to a number of information security expert panels for organizations such as the OECD's Business and Industry Advisory Council, the ENISA working group on risk management, the ICC, CBI and BSI panel 4.

After 18 years of working in the banking sector, Joerg Weber has been managing the internal affairs of a music and media enterprise in Frankfurt for several years. As „temporary manager", he was responsible for the finance and human resources divisions for Radio 01 GmbH and Koschwitz Kommunikation. His next appointment included consulting services for the Institute for New Media, followed by the foundation and management of several companies and agencies, including communication and strategy consulting firms. Since 2005 he has been managing shareholder of the corporate consulting firm Weber Networking GmbH. Joerg Weber was and still is an active member in a host of bodies and committees, including Frankfurt business development and advisor in the Hesse IT and Frankfurt Cultural committees. In addition, he is the founder of several initiatives and events including GAMEplaces and gamearea-FRANKFURTRHEINMAIN.

Dirk Weitzel is the „Information Systems Operations" group leader at the information processing division of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG. Today, Boehringer Ingelheim is among the internationally leading research companies, employing close to 40,000 people in 135 associated companies throughout the world. The business divisions of Boehringer Ingelheim are human pharmacy including the segments practice/hospital, biological drugs, self-medication, chemicals and animal health along with microsystem engineering introduced in 2004. Dirk Weitzel's responsibilities include the development and supervision of information systems to support the business processes in the production divisions from the planning to the control level. Dirk Weitzel was previously employed in the same company in various functions of the information processing division.

Secretary of State Horst Westerfeld has been an authorised agent for E-government and information technology of the Hesse state government since June 2008. After his training as millwright at Daimler-Benz in Bad Homburg, he completed a mechanical engineering and mathematics degree. Since 1986, Horst Westerfeld has been working for Siemens AG in various positions, last as director of the German online infrastructure project. The purpose of this project is the development of a computer network across Germany which connects all public services from the country, states and communities and standardises the electronic communication between the industry and administration. He is a lecturer at the Institute for Business Informatics at the Frankfurt University, focusing in IT governance, network analysis, provisioning, IT operations and ITIL. In addition, he is the co-founder of the E-finance lab research association.

Matt Wiseman is a Product Manager for YouTube in Europe, Middle East and Africa based in Zurich Switzerland. Prior to Google / YouTube Mr. Wiseman served leading companies as a consultant on technology and strategy issues primarily in the financial, technology and media industries at McKinsey & Company, Viant and Mitchell Madison Group in addition to working at a high-tech startup. Mr Wiseman studied at Cambridge University where he was awarded a first class undergraduate and a masters in computer science.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Johann-Dietrich Wörner has been Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) since March 1st, 2007. Before this he had been President of Darmstadt Technological University since 1995. Wörner was appointed to the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and is representative of the Technical Sciences Section of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Wörner has received honorary doctorates from State University New York (USA), the technological universities of Bucharest (Romania) and Mongolia, as well as St. Petersburg University for Economics and Finance (Russia), and École Centrale Lyon (France). Wörner is also a member of various national and international supervisory bodies, advisory councils and committees. He is a member of the board of École Centrale Paris and École Centrale Lyon, the Convention for Technical Sciences (acatech) and the supervisory board of Röhm GmbH, to name just a few. Furthermore, he was appointed to the "Projektgruppe Energiepolitisches Programm" (PEPP) expert group of the German Government. In June 2007, Wörner was elected Deputy Chairman of the Council of the European Space Agency.

After training as a cosmetician, Yvonne Zapf opened a beauty salon in the Kassel area and subsequently moved to Friedberg/Hesse. Her husband Rolf Zapf, a hardware and software developer, whose company has focused on producing net-technology programmes since 1995, developed a shop system from 1998 onwards, which was tailored specifically to the needs of cosmetic product marketing. Using this system Yvonne Zapf opened her mail order business at kosmetikkaufhaus.de in 1999. As the mail order business did well both the shop software and the business internal software for logistics and merchandise management were constantly expanded, in order to be able to deliver the steadily increasing number of consignments to order. The software is designed in such a way today that the complete ordering process occurs largely automatically via the net from taking the order via warehouse logistics and several hundred packages are dispatched every day.

Since 1997, Olaf Zimmermann has been the managing director of  Deutscher Kulturrat e.V., the organisation of German cultural associations headquartered in Berlin. It was founded in 1981 as politically independent joint venture of cultural and media political organisations of federal significance. The purpose of the cultural council is to introduce questions covering several sectors into the cultural political discussion on all levels. After his training as an arts dealer, Olaf Zimmermann managed several galleries and went into business for himself in 1987 by opening galleries for contemporary art in Cologne and Mönchengladbach. In 1991, he additionally opened an office for journalists and consulting services in Mönchengladbach. Zimmermann was working for expert committees of the German Bundestag during three consecutive legislative periods. From 1998 to 2002, he was the director of the task force "Art and Culture" of the „Forum for information society" set up by the Federal Ministry for the Economy and Technology and a member of the committee of enquiry on the „Future of the civic involvement". During the 15^th legislative period from 2002 to 2005, he was a member of the committee of enquiry on "Culture in Germany" of the Federal Bundestag.  This appointment continued into the following legislative period until it was completed with a final report in 2007. At the Franz Liszt University for Music in Weimar he accepted a lecturing post for cultural policies in the practice.