An important international conference was recently held in Heraclion, Crete on the “Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the promotion of Local Government and development”, with high participation on behalf of the local government sector.

The Technical Chamber of Greece and the Athens Bar Association have recently organized a one-day conference with the topic: "Electronic Communications. How safe are they?" with the aim to develop a dialogue framework for the dissemination of New Technologies of Electronic Communications in Greece and to shield the safety of information and communication infrastructures.

The messages from our country pertaining to the use of Internet are alarming and this kind of concern was expressed by many speakers in the one-day conference titled “New development and financing tools for the sector of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)” organized on Wednesday, June 14 by the Observatory for the Information Society and the National Technical University of Athens. The concerns are particularly intense with regard to the low use of Internet in small and medium-sized enterprises.

The National Centre of Public Administration and Local Government (Ε.Κ.D.D.Α.), within the framework of “Information Society”, will implement a study for the restructure of the services of the Region of Central Macedonia as well as of the Prefecture and Municipality of Thessaloniki.

The law amendment that has been recently submitted to the Parliament relates to possibility of providing preferential Internet access to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Universities by using infrastructures of private and public agencies.

Until June 19th 2006, the interested parties may submit their comments with regard to the provision of “Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)” services within the framework of the Public Consultation conducted by the National Telecommunications and Post Commission (ΕΕΤΤ).

A presentation of the action of state aids “Financing of Businesses for the Development of Broad Band Access in Greek Regions” of total budget equal to 210,000,000 € has been made at the facilities of IS S.A.

«The effect of the Internet to the media in Europe» has been the subject of the conference organized by the Faculty of Communication, Media and Culture of Pantion University, the European network of academics and researchers and the European Cultural Center of Delphi, on April 26 to 28 at Delphi.

Within the framework of the 7th “Framework Programme for the Research of the European Commission” and the implementation of research projects, through the οnline co-operations base of the European project "EASIER (Engaging regional SMEs within the ICT sector in EU research)", to which the National Documentation Centre participates, partners, small and medium sized enterprises and research organizations can perform researches for the joint submission of proposals to the Information and Communication Technology programme .

The date for its holding may not yet be defined, however this does not stop the Greek government from preparing for the 1st World Forum for the Administration of the Internet, which will take place this year in Athens, as it was decided last November within the framework of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis.