Conference Invitation

For many people in the European Education and Research Community, a networking conference looking at both the user opportunities and network challenges would seem an impossibility. The joint conference will bring together two very diverse groups to discuss the common ground between them and to build some understanding of what the users require and what the Internet engineers and developers can deliver. Since the inception of the Internet, users have often felt that they receive services that the technical experts want to deliver, rather than the technical experts looking at their requirements and delivering services.

The Internet is now being used to deliver teaching and learning to a wide academic audience whose requirements are different from those in the research community, who are primarily looking for bigger, better and faster Internet access. As service providers, we have to deliver what our users require, and their requirements will be diverse. One of the major problems that we have as service providers is how to reach the users before we identify their requirements and this is one area that we will look at during the conference.

New technologies create new applications as well as new requirements from the user community. The network engineers are keen to design and implement new architectures and technologies. As a result, the development of new services is followed by yet more demands for QoS, high performance and scalability.

The conference programme includes four plenary sessions with respected experts in their fields, including Tony Bates, Ian Foster, Stephen Heppell, Ken Klingenstein, Gerald Kovacich and Derek Law. There will be sessions on technological issues such as Security, Middleware, Mobile Technologies, Quality of Service, Peer-to-peer, Videoconferencing and Multimedia Services, Optical Networks, Network Management, Virtual Worlds, and Grid Technologies and Applications as well as reports on TERENA Projects and Activities.

The Congress Centre of the Hotel Opera, located in the heart of Zagreb, will provide a relaxed, friendly and professional venue for the conference. Zagreb is the capital of Croatia and is also the cultural and cientific centre, with the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the University of Zagreb, the Institute of Nuclear Physics and an observatory as well as fine museums and art galleries. The city offers a wide range of hotel accommodation for delegates to the conference. The conference itself will offer quality conference facilities, and colleagues from CARNet will be providing excellent Internet services for all delegates.

We would encourage you to book now for this unique joint conference that promises to be an exciting and interesting event.

Come to Zagreb and share your knowledge and experience. In the end, sharing is the essence of the Internet.

Sincerely

Shirley Wood and Miroslav Milinović
Joint Chairs of the Programme Committee