E-engineering: not to be missed
by Ing. Alexander Tranter
The Chamber of Professional Engineers will be organising its 9th Annual Engineering Conference with the theme "e-Engineering" next Thursday.
The full-day conference will be held at the Malta Hilton and will bring together a number of highly interesting presentations, all related to the Internet and telecommunications.
The conference promises to provide all participants with information on the latest local developments in the field of e-business, wireless communications, the Internet, and multimedia.
Speakers from leading organisations such as Vodafone, Melita Cable, Nortel Networks, Computime, Intercomp, Water Services Corporation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and DataStream, will give their views on how the internet is set to change our lives and the way we conduct business.
Together with these organisations, the conference will also be covering the important area of what is happening with the setting up a local IT legislative framework.
The conference aims to attract widespread participation from various local industry sectors who either want to learn more on what is happening in this rapidly evolving technology driven area, or want to seek ways and means of adjusting their present business strategies to one that is net-enabled.
What is for sure is that the Internet's importance is changing business models.
The more interaction organisations have with their customer's and suppliers, the more one can do everything from lower the cost of delivery to increase profitability by going directly from the manufacturer to the customer.
The internet is developing at such a fast pace that the question is not whether the internet will affect your business, but when. The amazing speed with which this technology is being driven can be seen today, as the next generation of Internet technology is already beginning to see results.
Internet2, a research project in which more than 160 US universities are collaborating with 60 leading global technology companies, are presently seeking to bring the Internet infrastructure up to speed.
It promises a backbone capacity of between two to 10 gigabits per second and an end user capacity in tens to the hundreds of megabits per second.
This alone lets your mind dream of the extent and richness of applications yet to be seen.
It is also interesting to note that according to the Gartner Group, the world's leading technology advisor, wireless communications will also change our lives and have a profound impact on businesses and society in general.
Gartner forecasts that the mobile phone will be the most numerous Internet access device in the world, with a total number of installed mobile phones having Internet capability expected to exceed a billion, sometime after 2003.
With developments such as these, it is important that all organisations and society in general, understand and embrace this new technology which is here to stay.
In a connected world, where the rules of business change as quickly as they are created, organisations must understand that their ability to respond quickly, will mean the difference between success and
failure.
For more information on the Conference being organised by the Chamber of Professional Engineers, contact the Chamber on tel: 344858, or fax: 347118.
The Chamber's website, containing a detailed programme of the Conference can be accessed at http://www.maltanet.net/cpe.
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