Wireless Cities Conference

20th June 2006: Studia Generalis -luennot julki
Tiedekeskus Tietomaassa suomeksi maanantaina 5.6 pidetyt Studia Generalis -luennot julkaistaan kokonaisuudessaan näillä sivuilla. Puhujina Studia Generalis -luennoilla olivat kulttuuritutkija, kolumnisti, kirjailija ja toimittaja Sam Inkinen, Oulun kaupungin tietohallintopäällikkö Ilari Heikkinen, TAITO Oulu 400 -ohjelman projektipäällikkö Marko Arffman sekä Oulun yliopiston professori Petri Pulli tietojenkäsittelylaitokselta. Pullin "Internet ja langattomuus - missä mennään?"-esitys ja Marko Arffmanin TAITO Oulu 400 -ohjelmaa koskeva esitys ovat jo nyt katseltavissa PowerPoint-esityksenä. Muut esitykset julkaistaan heti kun ne ovat saatavilla.

14th June 2006: Good Feedback from the Conference
Wireless Cities 2006 Conference gathered good feedback from its’ participants. Many visitors rejoiced that the Conference offered a good opportunity to interact with other people representing the wireless worldwide view.

The themes and the speakers were very liked – for example Mr. Arto Karila who spoke about Horizontalisation of Telecommunications, the Tibet Case by Mr. Yahel Ben-David, the session from Analysis of Mobile Business and the Panel Discussion from Thursday morning. Also the Wireless Oulu and Rotuaari Project aroused a great deal of interest.

Long g duration and bad timing of the Conference caused some discussions – there were other events concerning wireless communication at the same time. Some of the participant’s thought that the stress was too much on a technology and there were lack of more practical cases.

After all, the participants praised that arrangements of the Conference were well succeeded. There were some wishes to have a new Wireless Cities Conference in Oulu in the future.

Averages from the Conference in scale 1-5

Overall Grade About the Conference: 3,46
Site Visits: 3,43
Speakers: 3,50
The Content of the Conference: 3,33
Supplementary Material: 3,00
The Arrangements: 3,75
Opportunity to Interact With the Participants: 3,57
Duration of the Seminar: 2,64
Evening Events: 3,29
Expo: 2,80

13th June 2006: Photogallery and Alphabetical list of participants published
Photogallery and the alphabetical list of participants are published in this site. Please find the substances in question
from these links: Photogallery, Alphabetical list of participants

8th June 2006: Conference ended, thanks to all!
The organizers of the Conference would like to thank all the guests, speakers, exhibitors and co-operators for a successful event. Please find the abstracts, list of participants and photo gallery from these pages next week. If you hadn’t had a chance to give us feedback, you can do it now on these pages.

If you want to know how the European Wireless Cities project advances, please visit project's website.

8th June 2006: Views to the Future were regarded in the Panel Discussion n
Chair: Mr. Olli Martikainen, Professor of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu
Mr. Yahel Ben-David, CTO, The Tibetan Technology Center, Dharamsala, India.
Dr. Arto Karila, Karila A. & E. Ltd.
Mr. Juha Lampela, Technology Director, Multimedia Computers, Nokia
Dr. Timo Ojala, Professor, University of Oulu

The panel discussion was very fertile. The members in the panel and the audience discussed for example about the major technologies in the next few years and how the technologies will develop. Mr. Lampela asked who will be writing all the software that is needed. He confides to the pocketable devices, although there are challenges in that area. Mr. Ojala brought up the power issue – improving the power sources in portable devices is very important. Mr. Karila urged us to look ten years ahead, in his opinion there’s not very much totally new technologies or devices. But if you look 20 years ahead, perhaps you can see e.g. nanotechnologies. But can anybody see that far yet, asked Mr. Karila.

Mr. Ben-David gave another point of view to the discussion by emphasizing that huge part of this world is not joined in these technologies yet. He argued that the biggest technology revolution will happen when we share the access of information with the people of the developing countries. There’s a huge market and need for access to technology, stated Mr. Ben-David.

8th June 2006: The final day of the Conference full of fascinating ideas
In his opening speech Chair Olli Martikainen outlined the topic of the panel later in the afternoon. Mr. Arto Karila continued initializing the topics Mr. Martikainen introduced. Mr. Karila pointed out that nowadays new services can be profitable almost immediately, over night, running on existing terminals in existing network. For example Skype, which grew from nothing to a world wide service in a blink – all that was needed were the broadbands at homes, and they were already there.

Mr. Karila stated that if the customers had the opportunity to make their own applications, then we would have truly new innovations. It also came up that the consumer rights are not very well taken care of right now – inloading pictures and videos costs remarkable much, and the customer often doesn’t have an idea of the total costs. Mr. Karila argued that if the costs of these services weren’t so large, it would enable very much – it would innovate to new applications and ease up our lives.

Mr. Karila saw as the threats of the future for example the operators which are trying to cement their vertical structures. He suggested what should be done in Finland – the cities should open their WLAN infrastructures like Oulu and Lahti and offer inexpensive, reliable and fast wireless communications.

7h June 2006: Changes in bus schedules
Please notice that the bus schedules have changed. The buses back to hotels leave from the University at 17 and the buses from the hotels to Conference Dinner Buffet in Oulu Eden leave at 19. The organisation apologises about the inconvience.

7th June 2006: Expo opened at noon yesterday
The City of Oulu, the University of Oulu, Fujitsu, VTT and Plenware introduced their latest actions in the field of the wireless information technology yesterday afternoon in the Expo in Wireless Cities Conference 2006. These organisations will continue their introductions today 7th June starting at noon. Pay a visit to the stands of these organisations and you will found out a lot of interesting things. In the Expo you also have an extremely good possibility to discuss with the representatives of the organisations. If you are eager to experiment the latest innovations in practise, it is possible, too.

6th June 2006: The Mayor opened the Conference
Mr Kari Nenonen, Mayor of the City of Oulu welcomed the conference guests to Oulu to address one of the most challenging questions: how to transform and modernise public and especially city services by exploiting information technologies. Mr. Nenonen pointed out that without strengthening the mechanisms of delivering eGovernment at the local and regional level, it will be impossible to realise the potential benefits of ICT in the sphere of public administration.

Mr. Nenonen also stated that when it comes to the application of information technology to public services, the aim in Oulu is to deliver multi-channel online services that focus on the end user and increase efficiency and quality. After the speech the guests had an opportunity to get familiar with the hosting city through a film called "Oulu - a state of mind".
You can watch the video from the Internet www.ouka.fi/video ("Oulu On Asenne").

After the opening Mr. Vilho Myllyllä, the Vice-Rector also welcomed the guests to the Conference in the behalf of the University of Oulu.

6th June 2006: The winners of the COMPETENCE Oulu 400 Competition were awarded
COMPETENCE Oulu 400 Competition culminated on Monday 5th June as a part of Wireless Cities 2006 Conference's Get Together Cocktails. The mobile application's number one, Ms. Kaisa Huusko, was awarded with € 2000. City of Oulu is also prepared to pilot one to three best applications. Ms.Huusko’s application was one of over 20 applications and it is called theMobile Personal Trainer.

The idea series' winner Matti Mäki was awarded with € 1000. His idea was selected from over 100 ideas which were given to the COMPETENCE Oulu 400Competition. Mr. Mäki’s idea was a Mobile Navigation Aid for Visually Incabable in Public Transportation. In the idea series there were also a lottery and the winners of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet were Johanna Säkkinen, Helena Tornberg and Marko Kivimäki. The Jury of the Competition pointed out that the ideas and the applications were creative and brave and most of them aimed to ease the everyday life.

5th June 2006: Mr. Tuomas Tonteri's lecture cancelled
Mr. Tuomas Tonteri from Octopus is prevented to give his lecture about Mobile Security Solutions on Tuesday afternoon.

5th June 2006: Key Note from Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications on Tuesday changes
Mr. Juhapekka Ristola will replace Ms. Kristiina Pietikäinen tomorrow. Mr. Ristola is a Counsellor and Ministerial Adviser in Communications department in Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications.

5th June 2006: Extra Site Visit on Monday at 13
An extra Site Visit will be organised to Nokia on Monday at 13. The departure from the City Hall. Registrate in the City Hall before the Visit, please.

5th June 2006: Wireless Cities Project meeting running
The representatives of the Wireless Cities Project from six countries (Spain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland and Finland) encountered on Monday morning before the Conference started. The meetings agenda is to discuss the common tasks and schedules of the project and the Conference. The chairman of the meeting is Ms. Elisabeth Jorge from San Sebastian, Spain.

The conference is organised as a part of the international Wireless Cities project funded by the European Union and in Finland also by the Ministry of Interior. The project aims to accelerate the development and use of new wireless applications, along with the intention to make them known among the citizens.

The representatives of the Wireless Cities Project take part to the Conference starting officially on Tuesday.

1st June 2006: Conference registrations and Site Visit schedules

Registration to the Conference will start 5th June in the Oulu City Hall , Kirkkokatu 2, 12.00 and will end 17.00.

Site visits
People who are taking part to the site visits are asked to registrate in the Oulu City Hall before site visits. The Site Visit buses will leave in front of the City Hall on Monday 5th June 13.00 (Nokia) and 15.00. The buses will bring the groups back to the City Hall after the visits.

Site visit time table 5th June:

TIME: 13.00-15.00
- Bus 1: Nokia

TIME: 15.00-17.00
- Bus 1: Coronaria, Nokia
- Bus 2: CWC, VTT
- MOOP, constructed route to the city centre of Oulu

1st June 2006: Contact and travel information
You can check and print the most important contact information about the Conference and travelling in Oulu from this PDF (78kt).
Map of the University campus from University of Oulu's web site: English (PDF), Finnish (PDF)
Tietotalo 2's base map: English(PDF)

1st June 2006: Important facilities in the University of Oulu
All the speech and plenary sessions in the Conference the University of Oulu take place in Tietotalo 2, Rakentajantie 3.

Other important premises:
Checking E-mails: IT 105
Luggage room: IT 119
Speakers' room: IT 135
Press room: IT 136
Staff room: IT 137

1st June 2006: Conference Bus Schedules
Monday 5th June
City Hall/departure and arrival to site visits
- 13-15 site visit: Nokia Mobile Zone in Peltola
- 15-17 site visit
- Bus nro 1: Coronaria, Nokia Mobile Zone
- Bus nro 2: CWC Oulu University, VTT Linnanmaa

Tuesday 6th June
at 8 from City Centre to Oulu University, two buses (From Radisson SAS via Hotel Arina and Hotel Holiday Inn)
at 17 from Oulu University to City Centre, two buses

Wednesday 7th June
at 8.15 from City Centre to Oulu University, two buses (From Radisson SAS via Hotel Arina and Hotel Holiday Inn)
at 17 from Oulu University to City Centre, two buses

at 19 from City Centre to Oulun Eden (From Radisson SAS via Hotel Arina and Hotel Holiday Inn)
at 22 from Oulun Eden to City Centre

Thursday 8th June
at 8.15 from City Centre to Oulu University, two buses (From Radisson SAS via Hotel Arina and Hotel Holiday Inn)
at 13.30 from Oulu University to City Centre

31st May 2006: Changes in the Conference Program

Conference premises
All the speeches and plenary session will be held in Tietotalo 2 at the University of Oulu.

Opening speech changes
Mayor Kari Nenonen is prevented to give the welcome speech in the Conference Dinner Buffet in Oulun Eden on Wednesday. Mr. Nenonen will give the opening speech for the whole conference on Tuesday morning.

Speaker changes in Wireless Lahti - A Living Lab for Innovations session
Mr. Jyrki Rautkivi, Project Co-ordinator from Lahti Science and Business Park replaces Ari Kalmari on Tuesday's plenary session 4.

A change in the site visits
Oulu Expo site visit is cancelled because of lack of attendances.

31st May 2006: COMPETENCE Oulu 400 Competition Award Ceremony
COMPETENCE Oulu 400 Competition culminates on Monday 5th June as a part of Wireless Cities 2006 Conference's Get Together Cocktails. The winners will be published in the event. The idea series' winner is awarded with € 1000 and the mobile application's number one gets € 2000. City of Oulu has also prepared to pilot one to three best applications.
COMPETENCE Oulu 400 Competition is a part of City of Oulu's 400th anniversary gift COMPETENCE Oulu 400 programme.

Conference news are published by the staff of COMPETENCE Oulu 400 program.