CSIRO-China first up summit on ICT

By Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 08:45

Market

Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, has brought together Chinese and Australian policy makers, industrialists and researchers in a first-ever ICT summit it is hosting in Shanghai to discuss the future of information and communication technologies.

Sponsored by the CSIRO and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, the summit brings together almost 70 policy makers, industrial leaders and prominent researchers to focus on wireless broadband, sensor networks and e-health.

The two-day summit, which will conclude later today, follows the formation in March this year of the Australia- Research Centre for Wireless Communications, a collaboration led by CSIRO and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, that has already attracted 14 partners.

CSIRO Information Sciences Group Executive, Dr Alex Zelinsky, told the summit that “these are three important areas for our economy, environment and our wellbeing,” and he added, “Australia’s planned national broadband network will serve as a technology platform for the further development of these three areas (wireless broadband, sensor networks and e-health).”

“For example, giving all Australians access to the same level of high quality healthcare regardless of where they live, enabling large scale networks of intelligent sensors that monitor our environment, and facilitating the establishment of smart energy grids.”

Dr Zelinsky told the summit that Australia has a proud history in ICT research, with CSIRO playing a leading role in ICT technology development, and he said that collaborations between Australia and China in ICT had been growing steadily.