Openforum Academy Breakfast Meeting 23rd March - The Open Workplace of the Future

It is abundantly clear that the workplace of today is set for radical change. Past practice is of little use when we consider the future of how we will interact with colleagues, partners, customers, suppliers.

The impact of mobile devices, the inevitability of the 'cloud', and the ubiquity of open solutions will underpin the route forward. Will we even recognise the desktop of today in just 10 years time, or even in 5 years? How will technology help us to collaborate?

Such debates are not just the province of the technology strategist, they directly influence procurement decisions today, not only for private companies, but equally for the public sector whether it be at local, provincial, national or European government level. They directly impact ICT decisions made at the highest level.

Few can honestly say they can accurately predict the future, so what procurement decisions and plans can be made? What are the pitfalls? And what are the key considerations? How do you avoid locking yourself out from the opportunity of tomorrow?

As part of the OpenForum Academy programme we are hosting a Round Table discussion among industry and community experts, together with decision makers and strategists from across the EC and national governments. Introductory interventions will be given by:

• John Walicki, head of IBM's global Open Computing initiative, and is IBM's I/T Client Architect

• Jan Wildeboer, Red Hat EMEA, Open Source Affairs

• John Abel, Oracle EMEA, Chief Technology Architect

The Round Table discussion will be moderated by Sachiko Muto, a Director of OFA, and the rapporteur will be Maha Shaikh, Senior Researcher at the London School of Economics who will be publishing a short report after the proceedings.

We would like to invite you to participate in this Round Table which will be held on the 23rd March from 0800 to 1030hrs at the Silken Berlaymont Hotel, Brussels - Breakfast will be provided.

To confirm your participation simply click here to Register.
Any other enquiries to: events@openforumacademy.org

I look forward to welcoming you at the event.

Regards

Paul Meller
Director of Research and Communications

Speaker Bios

John Walicki is part of the IBM Senior Technical Staff and manager for the IBM I/T Workplace of the Future Initiative where he leads the internal IBM Open Computing strategy. As the IBM I/T Client Architect his teams are responsible for IBM's internal strategy for Windows/Linux/Mac/Mobile Devices/Desktop Virtualization and Open Standards. He also leads the open standards based Browser Independence deployment of Firefox within IBM and the Document Interchange strategy to switch IBM to the Open Document Format based IBM Lotus Symphony. He leads the Messaging and Collaboration strategy for IBM I/T and is responsible for the global strategy and deployment of Lotus Notes and Lotus Sametime . His global development and integration teams are working to lower the costs of deployment of an enterprise enabled Linux Client.John is an active leader in the Linux desktop community, serving as the Linux Foundation's Desktop Linux Workgroup chairman from 2007-2008 and representing IBM on the Gnome Foundation Advisory Board.

Jan Wildeboer has been an open source user and developer since 1993 and is responsible for Open Source Affairs at Red Hat in EMEA, located in Munich. Over the years, he has been watching how Internet, Open Standards and Open Source models continue to influence and change the world.

John Abel is the Chief Technology Architect for EMEA Server and Storage as a long term Oracle employee he has full visibility and understanding of the software elements in Oracle. Now he has moved to the hardware arena to drive the understanding on how software can use the advantages of engineered together systems. John has been at Oracle for over 17 years performing many different functions and more recently being the Consulting Chief Technology Architect for Western Europe, this enables John to provide a view from the implementation side of Oracle with real world examples. John is an Oracle Press Author (Oracle E-Business Suite Security) and delivered the eWeek OpenHack project to show Oracle Unbreakable solutions in 2004. John is a regular speaker at Oracle and partner events across World.