Mass participation in the Cybersociety Congress and many projects ahead
The most digital Congress held in the country has closed its virtual doors following 17 days of intense net debates, centred precisely on our digital future. Although the plug has been pulled on the live discussions, communication is still open for the cyberattendees who have more time via a general fòrum to continue the spontanious conversations which have sprung up over the course of the three weeks. The high flux of messages and visits attest to the fact that the participants had a lot to express and from now on they intend to remain very active.
The (good) moment for statistics
Now that the IVth Cybersociety Congress has wound up it is time to take stock of how this year has gone... and the evaluations are extremely positive. Dividided in six subject groupings -education, science, politics, culture, economics and communication-, 47 work-groups were set up who opened 400 communications. In these subjects 2,502 interventions were made, mainly focussing on "Communication", which generated 700 messages.
Apart from the high participation of the over 2,500 signed up, there was a lot of traffic from the general public interested in what was going on at the congress, with the result that there were almost 40,000 hits and according to Google Analytics, around 225,000 pages visited. The debats involving "Communication" also the ones attaracting more attention, with more than 11,728 visits in the 17 days.
A very "International" Living Congress... and open
The Cybersociety Congress 2009 has set out its stall as one of the international events in the Spanish-speaking world when it comes to social research in the Knowledge Society.
An example of this global consolidation is the map of the countries of origin of the congress attendees. More than 63 % of participants were from outside Spain- basically South-america, with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina in descending order.
The congress has become, consequently, a wealth of knowledge and an excellent base for international relationships and exchanges for its participants, partners and organizers.
Preparing for the future today
This Living Congress is an initiative by the Observatory for Cybersociety, a non-profit making organization constituted in 2001 working mainly on-line. Its objective being to promote research and exchange of information and experiencies into all cyber social and cultural aspects and, especially, information and communication technology (ICT) through activities and projects of universal access.
Citilab-Cornellà is a partner in this year’s congress and reflects the interest of this people’s laboratory in promoting projects related to Social Internet and research aiming to usher in the information Society.
This IVth Congress has managed to bring together students of the subject, experts, professionals, and both public and private managers to reflect and debate into questions surrounding the human dimension of the digital world. It has become a very rich virtual space for identifying tendencies, opening the door to future discussions into other – free and co-operative- areas of new technology.
To this end, this year’s congress, although taking place officially in november, began last March when the first on-line participation opened to draw up the list of subject areas from everyone’s – more than 1,000 proposals from over 500 people- suggestions. It is therefore, an event that i fit maintains its current projection looks to have a solid future.
