World Wide Web Consortium to Hold its First Outreach Event in Mainland China

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China International Forum on WWW's Development 2003 brings together W3C Technologists and Chinese Technical Leaders

 

http://www.w3.org/ -- 23 October 2003 -- W3C announces its first event organized in mainland China. The China International Forum on WWW's Development 2003 will be held on 12-13 November 2003 in Beijing. The event is co-organized by the China Computer Federation and the W3C Office in Hong Kong.

The program for 12 November includes the following presenters and general topics:

  • Dr. Ivan Herman, W3C Head of W3C Offices: "General W3C Overview" and "Overview of the Semantic Web"
  • Dr. Philipp Hoschka, W3C Deputy Director for Europe and Interaction Domain Leader: "Mobile Web"
  • Mr. Richard Ishida, W3C Architecture Team: "Keeping the Web Together Around the World"
  • Prof. Shi Zhongzhi, Secretary-General of the China Computer Federation: "Intelligent Web"
  • Ms. Judy Brewer, W3C WAI Domain Leader: "Web Accessibility Initiative"

The program for 13 November brings W3C Technical staff for a series of tutorials, featuring:

In addition to the presentations and tutorials, there will be a panel discussion on W3C in China, involving W3C team members and local experts. Forum participants will be invited to ask questions and challenge the speakers at the panel discussion.

Web Development in China

China has more than 45 million Internet users and the number is still growing. Chinese is the second most widely used language (behind English) on the Web. Cultural and language differences increase the necessity to pay attention to how the Web grows so that more people can access the Web easily, and so that user agents can render and search Chinese Web pages correctly with a variety of devices.

"The differences in knowledge levels, languages, consumers and producers, etc., have created information asymmetry which hinders international information exchange," says Professor Shi Zhongzhi.

Many international companies have set up research and development laboratories in China to work on Web-related technologies. However, the Web community at large needs more input from Chinese public users, academia and local industry, who depend on the Web in their daily activities.

"In view of the growing Web usage, especially growth in China, the Chinese people must participate more actively in the development of Web technologies," says Prof. Vincent Shen, Manager of the W3C Hong Kong Office.

This forum will give W3C and Web users in China a chance to understand each other's goals and concerns. W3C would like to see the Web grow in a direction where real needs from Chinese users are properly addressed. W3C also welcomes participation of Chinese experts in its Working Groups and Activities. W3C looks forward to building ties with the Chinese Web community.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

 

Contact Americas, Australia --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

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