“Open Source: A Case for e-Government” conference will be held in Washington, DC, USA, October
16 – 18, 2002. The aim of the conference is to raise awareness and to share experiences among policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and industry specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields. The conference will draw participants from local, national and international organizations from both the public and private sector.” Full text of the announcement is within.

Open Source: A Case for e-Government
Washington, DC
October 16 – 18, 2002
October 16, 2002 Marvin Center George Washington University Grand Ballroom
800 21st St. NW (on the corner of 21st and H Sts. NW)
October 17 and October 18, 2002 The World Bank IFC Auditorium
2121 Pennsylvania Avenue

The Information for Development program (infoDev) of the World Bank, the
Cyberspace Policy Institute of The George Washington University, and the
Sustainable Development Networking Programme of the United Nations
Development Program are pleased to invite you to a conference on “Open
Source: A Case for e-Government” to be held in Washington, DC, USA, October
16 – 18, 2002. The aim of the conference is to raise awareness and to share
experiences among policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and
industry specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields. The
conference will draw participants from local, national and international
organizations from both the public and private sector.

The core sessions of the conference will focus on:

� Keynote by Congressman Rick Boucher, co-founder of the Congressional
Internet Caucus
� Open Source and e-Government in the U.S., Europe and developing
countries (how governments and local authorities are benefiting from using
Open Source)
� Open Source vs. Proprietary Software (what is the proper role of each
in e-Government)
� Demonstrations of Open Source Projects (LinuxTM, OpenOffice,
MozillaTM, GNOME, MySQL)
� Meet the Open Source Vendors
� Open Source and the Security of the Critical Infrastructure
� Business Cases: The Economics of Using Open Source Software and Total
Cost of Ownership

Please visit the website http://www.egovos.org for further information. As this is an invitation only event, you must be registered to attend. You may
register online by visiting the conference website and kindly note that all
registrations must be received no later than October 11, 2002. There is no
registration cost for the event.

We hope that you will join us for what promises to be an exciting event.
Please complete the registration form as per the instructions in the
conference website. Feel free to contact us in the case of any questions or
concerns at (202) 994-5513.

Forbes has a wide ranging discussion with senior editor Robert Langreth about IT in health care and why it largely hasn’t happened.

Interesting article over at Wired about assisting those with cognitive deficits using AI: ‘…”Dementia is the loss of problem-solving skills,” said Dr. Eric Tangalos, co-director of the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. “But we should be able to use technology to fill in the gaps…’

Here’s a pair of supercomputing articles for your interest courtesy of Karsten Hilbert: ‘…Biotech company Medica Holdings Ltd today said it had formed an agreement with IBM that will allow its subsidiary Cytopia to speed up discovery of drug candidates to treat immune disease and cancer.

Medica said the Melbourne-based Cytopia would deploy IBM’s latest generation Linux supercomputing technology, allowing it to increase 100 fold its speed and selectivity in screening drug candidates… You can find this article here. The next one can be found here: ‘…It may not be much more than a pipsqueak right now, but the computer system now being set up at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is expected to grow into the world heavyweight of Linux supermachines…