Telework ´97
”a conference for the future”

Telework ´97, the fourth Assembly on teleworking and new ways of working took place in Stockholm September 24-26. The conference attracted 460 participants from 20 different countries.

Good practice for the future was in focus and was shown and discussed from many angles of approach. The conference attracted also a row of high level speakers. Three Swedish Ministers and first level executives from DG V, DG XIII and DG XVI gave their opinions on teleworking and the Information Society. Great support to the conference was given by five internationally renowned IT companies; Intel, IBM, Telia, Canon and 3Com. All five participated with leading people in the rostrum, speaking enthusiastically in favour of more investment in telework. They all guaranteed that teleworking had high priority on their agendas for the future. 

Good examples on telework implementations, applications, etc. from all over Europe was presented in different ways during the conference. The challenge to share the experiences and to register for the Call for cases was taken by many actors. By the opening of the conference the number of registered cases was 85. From October 22 they will all be visible at the Telework ´97 website www.nutek.se/telework97conference

When discussing the future it is important to bring in the real voice of the future - the youth. At Telework ´97 the Swedish Youth Council for IT and the Youth Forum in Brussels discussed young peoples views on future working life and life styles.

Two attentive awards was presented; The International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research was held out to Dr Arnold C. Cooper, Purdue University Indiana by Mr Anders Sundström, the Swedish Minister of Industry and Trade.The European Women Entrepreneurship Award was handled out by Mrs. Ines Uusmann, the Swedish Minister of Communications and Transport. The winner was Mrs Pirkko Saarikivi, Weather Service Finland Ltd.

In connection to the conference, in addition to organised study visits, several meetings in different ACTS-projects took place.

The conference with its balanced programme was highly appreciated by the participants. Seminars, lectures, questions and answers was mixed with informal discussions and social amusements.

Peter Johnston, DG XIII made the conclusions and summarizing from the conference; “This has been a conference of the future. Maybe we have reach the point where we are spared having to go through all our arguments to convince people of the advantages of teleworking. That’s the way I feel. Now we can go on from here.”

Proceedings from Telework ´97 are in course of preparation. Three Newsletter covering the three conference days is available at the Telework website.

It is important that the Telework conferences not is seen as single events but as a serie of events linked to each other, showing the progress in teleworking and focusing on different themes.

For that reason we look forward to next years event, Telework ´98 taking place in Lisbon September 23-25, 1998

In a few weeks time November 3-10, though, it is time for Telework Week 1997 to take place in every corner of Europe. Telework ´97 could be seen as an early start of that ”campaign”.

For further information please contact Katarina Almquist, NUTEK, who is the Project Manager for Telework ´97. E-mail: katarina.almquist@nutek.se