A Welcome from CPSR President Aki Namioka
March 1, 1997
Seattle, Washington
Dear Conference Participant:
Hello and welcome to the 10th Anniversary of the CPSR sponsored conference - Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (DIAC). Like this conference, the first DIAC (DIAC ‘87) was held in Seattle Washington, and I am delighted that my home town is once again hosting this event.
CPSR has changed in 10 years and the theme of this year’s conference "Community Space and Cyberspace: What’s the Connection?" illustrates how the organizational focus has broadened in recent years. The amount of information that is distributed around the world every day is mind-boggling. 10 years ago terms like "the Web", "the Information Infrastructure", "Network-centric computing", and even the "Internet" were not part of the common vocabulary, and "cyberspace" was a term that was reserved for science fiction novels.
Yet today, the concept of cyberspace is something that many of us have now experienced in some form or another. Even participating on an e-mail list makes as a part of a community that is created from packets of electronic data being passed back and forth. We no longer need a physical location to build a sense of camaraderie, or share experiences, wisdom, or random thoughts with other people who have similar interests.
This conference will address topics like what types of communities are being built in cyberspace? What impact do these communities have on, for example, education or our physical communities? And last but not least, what will future cyberspace communities look like? I am thrilled that you will be joining me in this exciting weekend of thought provoking talks and workshops as we look at these issues and more.
Aki Namioka
President, CPSR