11 January 2001

GURU SET TO REVEAL THE IT FUTURE TO LOCAL BUSINESSES

One of the world's leading IT figures is coming to Northern Ireland in the next couple of weeks to give local businesses the chance to benefit from his experience.

In recent years the Training and Employment Agency (T&EA) has brought some of the world's best known business leaders and gurus to Northern Ireland and 2001 will be no exception.

The T&EA, in association with ICL, will be running a major one day conference on Thursday 25 January 2001, when one of the world's most pre-eminent speakers on information technology, Nicholas Negroponte, will give an insight into the endless possibilities IT can bring and looks at what the next big surprises of the Internet might be.

Judith Shaw from the T&EA explains: "The world of business is changing at an incredible pace. Developments in technology have turned the global economy into reality. In planning for future business development it is vital that business leaders in Northern Ireland are aware of what might be and are stimulated and challenged in their thinking.

"What we're aiming to do through the conference is to take business leaders on an incredible journey into the future, a future where almost anything is possible.

"The last decade has seen IT change the way many businesses operate and those changes mean that the skills needed to lead a successful company have also changed.

"We hope that our speakers will explore the impact of digital technology on the global economy, look at the skills our business leaders might need, answer many of the questions on their minds and go one step further by looking at what the future holds."

Other speakers at the conference will include Fons Trompenaars, a leading authority on cultural diversity. He has recently interviewed 21 of the world's top leaders to find out what makes them tick, so his session on leadership should be very interesting.

Jeff Peel of Amacis, one of our most successful local software companies, will look at what makes a successful dot.com, while Pascal King of Baltimore Technologies and Colin Reid of Task Group, will talk about how you lead a local company and make it a global success.

The conference, entitled "Creating the Future - Leadership through the Digital Age", will be held in the Culloden Hotel, Holywood from 9 am to 4 pm on Thursday 25 January 2001 and if previous years are anything to go by the tickets will go like the proverbial hot-cakes.

Anyone that wants to go along can get full details and book their seats by contacting Lynda Davis of Project Planning International, Tel: 028 9756 1993, Fax: 028 9756 5073 or e-mail: lynda@project-planning.com