Today saw the opening of the first Internet Week Europe. This five day festival, hosted in London, runs until 12th November and aims to raise the profile of Europe’s thriving online digital industry.
Presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the festival aims to follow in the footsteps of Internet Week New York which took place for the third time in June this year with approximately 250 events.
Over 100 events have already been added to the calendar for Internet Week Europe and feature some of the biggest names in digital technology: the BBC, Yahoo!, Creative Review, Google, Lonely Planet, Channel 4 and Skype.
To kick off celebrations BBC Worldwide and Lonely Planet are offering their two most popular apps for free and Skype is providing free wifi access across the UK for the duration of the festival.
In honour of the internet’s open structure the entire European internet community has been invited to participate and program the festival. Any European individual or organisation can add an event to the official calendar and have it showcased and promoted online.
Openness on the web is ever-increasing, as is evidenced by the success of Open Access Week 2010, which was three times larger than last year.
The internet is an international source of information with a global reach not just to be focused on and celebrated in Europe and North America. As part of an Open Access Week initiative BioMed Central are hosting Open Access Africa later this week at Kenyatta University, Kenya to discuss open access in an African context. Can’t
make it? Use the hashtag #oaafrica to follow the conversation on Twitter.
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