The Academic Forum is the main academic activity of the ANDICOM Congress. In order to ensure a high academic level and relevance of programmed conferences in this Forum, the Academic Committee designs content requirements according to technology and market trends, as well as national and international relevant issues and business aspects, affecting the telecom industry development.

Quoting the famous phrase of Archimedes "Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth" today, the Information and Communication Technologies –ICT- constitute the support for the society’s development and the tool for global transformation. Research done in the past few years, show that the use of technology can come to generate competitive advantages and increase the development range of the communities that use them.

Is good to remember that ICT include, not only the technological systems related to informatics, telecommunications and multimedia, but also mass media, interest communities and interpersonal communication tools with technological support like mobile devices (cell phones, PDA, etc.)

A palpable example of the existing relation between the mayor productivity of a country and the use of ITC is evident in the fast development of South Korea, globally recognized for its technological revolution, and whose experience was shown at Andicom 2007 version, where Korea was the Honor Guest. 

 

Welfare and productivity

Giving the importance and the consciousness of using and embracing ITC, international communities and governments are committed, more each time, to push forward technological knowledge and development in all sectors, with the goal of generating efficiency and transparency on their process and therefore, hand welfare to the community.

In the same amount that ICT are incorporated into the areas of health, education, business, information research, investigation and entertainment, it increases the support for those citizens who lead more productive life styles.

Precisely these topics will be approached in the Academic Agenda of the Andicom Congress, which have been structured by CINTEL, along with the Congress Academic Committee, to be analyzed from the perspectives of: technology and market, regulatory and business aspects, and considerations of the international environment.

The Main Academic Forum, held within the congress frame, is constituted in a space where high level speakers will approach the topic: Technology as a tool to create welfare and build future, through presentations which show experiences, strategies, public and privet alliances among countries and regions, including Colombia.

A highlight will be the space for the sample of experiences related to the concept of "Ubiquitous City". These cities are a step ahead of the "Digital Cities", as communications networks both wired and wireless, make it possible -through interconnections imperceptible to users and through electronic devices that are becoming smaller-, the offer of "ubiquitous services," services that are based on the information contained in all information systems available to the public.

These ubiquitous services will be available to all people, anytime, anywhere and on any device, with the aim of improving the living standards of the community through the access to key residential information systems, medical, commercial and government, sharing information across not only mobile devices but also integrated into houses, streets and office buildings.

For it, is necessary to start from three fundamental elements for its construction: infrastructure, content and appropriation (life style). On infrastructure is important to have in mind aspects related to the selection of the type of network to display, examples of it are the NGN (Next Generation Networks), its dimension and its support to the functionality of the services that will be implanted over such infrastructure. About the topics of content and appropriation, it stands out the importance of the type of content, its format, pertinence of the information’s security management, user’s privacy, advertising strategies, among others.

To accomplish the subject goal of Andicom 2008, the Academic Agenda, has been structured on the base of topics related to e-health, e-education, banking, entertainment, mass media, architecture oriented to the service –SOA-, e-commerce, information privacy, policies, regulation and environmental concern.

In addition to the academic conferences, the assistants to the Andicom Congress will establish contact with the providers of technology and visit the Ubiquitous City pavilion, where they can find solutions for baking, e-health, e-education, government, entertainment, mass media, among others, and get to know the successful national and international experiences on this matter.