HANNOVER, GERMANY — CeBIT 2012 kicks off on Tuesday, 6 March, with a winning conference program, all the latest ICT gadgets and innovations and a ready-made market of providers and potential customers from over 100 countries. The organizer, Deutsche Messe, is also expecting around 130 international business and government delegations. "We are in for an exciting time at CeBIT 2012. The ICT industry stands to benefit from favorable conditions, and all signs point to a highly successful show ahead," remarked Ernst Raue, member of the Deutsche Messe Managing Board, at a press conference in Hannover on Friday, 24 February. CeBIT, the world‘s No. 1 showcase for the digital industry, will be ceremoniously opened on the evening of Monday, 5 March, by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The lead theme for this year‘s CeBIT is "Managing Trust." Ernst Raue explains: "User trust is a key prerequisite for growth in the digital industry. And it poses a number of major challenges for providers of ICT services and online vendors. It is therefore a good thing that more and more companies in the sector are beginning to realize how critical it is to make trust and security a top priority on their executive agendas." Increasing mobility, the global scope and reach of today‘s ICT solutions and an upsurge in cloud services call for much more than purely technical means of ensuring security. "Organizational and legal issues are also essential to balancing the security equation. And with social networking growing by leaps and bounds, a great deal of dialogue is still needed on how to empower and inspire users to use online media judiciously and safely. Thanks to its unique, all-encompassing scope and reach, CeBIT is the only event capable of serving as a crucible for the kind of top-notch international mindsharing and debate required," commented Raue.
The CeBIT 2012 Opening Ceremony will be staged on the evening of Monday, 5 March. Among the dignitaries who will be addressing the 2,500 VIP guests at the ceremony are German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff (on behalf of Brazil as this year‘s CeBIT Partner Country), the Premier of the German state of Lower Saxony, David McAllister, and the President of high-tech industry association BITKOM, Dr. Dieter Kempf. The lead address by the industry representatives will be given by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.
More leading lights of the international ICT community will be speaking at the CeBIT Global Conferences (CGC), the world‘s biggest such event dedicated entirely to ICT topics. The CGC keynote addresses will be kicked off by Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner, as he unveils a number of innovations pertaining to Microsoft‘s new operating system, Windows 8. All in all, the list of speakers for the CGC comprises some 60 movers and shakers from the digital industry. In addition, Neelie Kroes, the EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda and Vice-President of the European Commission, will be taking the CGC podium to give a status report on the EU‘s Digital Agenda project launched two years ago. Admission to the CeBIT Global Conferences is free of charge for CeBIT ticket-holders.
