On Sept. 28th, Secretary General of the Group, Prof. Turk was a keynote speaker at the Eurobarometer Conference “Understanding European Public Opinion” in Gothenburg, Sweden. “The European public opinion has high aspirations for the future of Europe and politicians must make these aspirations come true” was one of his conclusions. Also keynote speakers at the conference were a member of the Reflection Group Prof. Nicolaidis and vice-president of the European Commission, Ms. Wallström.
On Oct. 8th, Dr. Turk was a panelist on the Future Internet panel at the ITU Telecom World 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland. The session was organized by Dr João Augusto Schwarz da Silva, Director, DG Information Society, European Commission. Dr. Turk’s message was that information technology empowers: “Never before there was so much information, knowledge, computing power and contacts to other smart people available to the citizen. Future architectures and technologies should maintain this constant empowering of the masses - because it is in the masses where the new ideas are“. As priorities for the future internet, Dr. Turk listed the five “i”s. “Internet should continue to foster innovation, attract investment, we should rethink IPR for the digital world, it should remain inclusive and continue to grow beyond anyone’s imagination.
On Oct. 10th, Dr. Turk was speaking at the International Conference of the Slovenian Pan-European Youth in Ptuj, Slovenia.
On Oct. 15th, Dr. Turk was addressing the 5th European Futurists Conference Visioning 20.20 Escaping the Age of Stupid in Lucerne, Switzerland. He asked weather humanity today is not too much dependent on the future; financially hoping for future growth of stock value, using up future potential of CO2 emissions using up resources that should be saved for the future etc. He summarized the future vision of Europe into “From Europe of coal and steel to global player of sun and bytes“.