Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Carey Williamson, iCORE Professor, Computing Sciences, University of Calgary
SUBJECT: #214 2007 World Wide Web Conference in Banff
SYNOPSIS: iCORE professor Dr. Carey
Williamson is the man behind the
Planning of the 16th International
World Wide Web Conference which
Will bring internet superstars to
Banff next spring.
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
#214 October 10, 2006
Interview starts at 23:49
Intro: Next May, the who’s who of the World Wide Web will gather in Banff for an international conference that focuses on the latest technologies and ethical issues surrounding the internet. Dr.Carey Williamson is an iCORE professor and computer science at the University of Calgary. And for the last three years, he and his colleagues have been working hard to organize this prestigious
Carey Williamson
CW: it’s called the 16th international World Wide Web Conference. It is a large international conference which attracts about a 1000 people who all are interested in web technologies and the application of the world wide web.
CC: WHERE ELSE HAS THIS BEEN HELD?
CW: This conference moves all around the globe. The most recent ones have been in New York City in 2004, in Japan in 2005 and most recently in Edinborough, Scotland a couple of months ago, 2006.
CC: WHAT IS IT THAT YOU TRY AND ACCOMPLISH AT THESE CONFERENCES?
CW: These conferences are sort of the fertile ground for the interaction between academics, and industry, and government, and web developers, and standard bodies who are all setting the course, setting the direction for the future of the world wide web. So it brings in major players, people like Tim Bernardsley, the original inventor of the WWW. The World Wide Web Consortium, major industry players like Google and Yahoo and Ask and Amazon. They’re all going to be there as part of this conference. It’s a chance to foster those hallway discussions about web technologies and where the future of it is going.
CC: WHAT ARE THE ISSUES THAT YOU WANT TO ADDRESS IN THE ONE THAT IS COMING UP IN BANFF?
CW: I think the main thing that I want to do is make sure that Alberta is really an IT showcase at this event. The event has only been in Canada once before. That was in Toronto in 1999. This is our chance to really put Alberta on the map in the ICT area for web technologies. There’s many Alberta based companies that would like to have, should have a presence at this event. And I really want to make this the best one yet in the whole conference series.
CC: BUT WHEN YOU LOOK AT SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT ARE FACING PEOPLE TODAY, THINGS LIKE SPAM, ARE THESE KINDS OF THINGS GOING TO BE DISCUSSED?
CW: You name it, we have it there. There are sessions on web browser designs, sessions on web privacy, web security, identity theft. Session on the semantic web. Sessions on web search, data mining. Security, privacy, reliability, ethics. The wireless web, The pervasive web. You name it we have it.
CC: NOW I SEE YOU HAVE SOME DEADLINES COMING UP AND ONE OF THE FIRST ONES HAS TO DO WITH PRESENTATIONS IN NOVEMBER. WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT?
CW: A big part of the conference is called the Referreed Papers. Those papers have to be submitted by November 20th. They spend about three months in the review process with a technical program committee. And accepted papers get announced at the end of January. In addition to the Refereed Papers, we also run panel sessions, invited talks, plenary sessions and an exhibition that has a selected industry exhibitors demonstrating their software, their tools, their products for the web community.
CC: AND KEYNOTE SPEAKERS. DO YOU HAVE THOSE LINED UP?
CW: We have four slots for plenary speakers. Two of them have already been announced. We have a gentleman named Bill Buxton who is one of Canada’s leading visionaries on technology and society. We have a person named Dick Hart who is an expert on web identity 2.0. And we have two other slots that have not yet been confirmed, but they will be high profile international speakers with a very strong draw for the web community.
CC: WELL CONGRATULATIONS ON PULLING THIS ALL TOGETHER. I’M ACTUALLY LOOKING FORARD TO BEING THERE AND MEETING SOME OF THESE PEOPLE. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, CAREY.
CW: Thank you.
Dr. Carey Williamson, an iCORE professor in wireless networks at the University of Calgary. He is organizing the 16th International World Wide Web Conference which will be held in Banff next May.
FEATURED LINK: iCORE