Business Ecosystems for Small and Medium Enterprises

Cairns, Australia

21-23 February 2007

http://www.ieee-dest.curtin.edu.au

Digital Ecosystem (DE) is an emerging paradigm for economic and technological innovation. It consists of a self-organizing digital infrastructure, aimed at creating a digital environment for networked organizations (or agents) the supporting the cooperation, knowledge sharing, and development of open and adaptive technologies and evolutionary domain knowledge rich environments. DE captures the essence of the ecological community in nature, where biological organisms form a dynamic and interrelated complex ecosystem, in analogy with economic organisms (such as business entities) or digital organisms (such as software applications). Digital species, just like biological ones, 'create and conserve resources that humans find valuable'.

The DE paradigm is increasingly regarded as the main driver behind 'business model innovation in the Digital Economy'. It transcends traditional rigorously defined collaborative environments, such as centralised (client-server) or distributed (peer-to-peer) models into agents-based, loosely coupled, domain-specific and demand driven interactive communities which offer cost-effective digital services and value-creating activities that attract agents to participate and benefit from it.

DEs can be specifically developed for the Small and Medium Enterprise community, where species in the ecosystem include virtual enterprises, business portals, service brokers and organizational databases.

DE technologies provide transparent, open ICT support to the ecosystem's intelligence and knowledge based development, moving away from isolated business to business cooperation toward systemic collaboration, competition, and synergy with partners, enabling virtual economic districts and enhancing their competitiveness over the global market.

The key strategic direction of IEEE-DEST 2007 conference is conveying DE vision and research results to enrich Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Today, SMEs compose over 90% of all world industry and 95% of them belong to the private sector. They are a major part of the global economy, especially in developing countries where their vitality, together with the innovation potential of DEs could lead to the establishment of profitable niche markets. Process digitalisation in the framework of digital ecosystems will foster new partnerships and collaborative research.

An important part of the strategy of this IEEE-DEST Conference is to work together with SMEs toward the adoption of DE-based business models and technologies.

The 1st IEEE-DEST Conference will become the main international forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange information regarding advancements in the state of the art and practice of advanced models for designing and deploying inter-organizational digital business processes involving networks of small and medium enterprises.

-- DEADLINES --

Deadline for Tutorial, Workshops and Special Session Proposal Due: 30 July 2006

Full Paper Submissions Due: 15 September 2006

Paper Acceptance Notifications: 15 November 2006

Final 'Camera Ready' Papers Due: 31 December 2006

Workshops: 20 February 2007

Conference: 21-23 February 2007

Tour: 24 February 2007

-- CALL FOR TUTORIALS AND SPECIAL SESSIONS --

We invite proposals for tutorials and special sessions to be held in conjunction with Inaugural IEEE-IES Digital EcoSystem Technologies for Small and Medium Enterprises Conference. Please submit a full proposal to the conference manager stating your objectives, intended audience, associated costs, projected attendees, committee members and their affiliations and estimated duration of your session or tutorial. Full proposals are due by 30 July 2006. www.ieee-dest.curtin.edu.au

-- CALL FOR PAPERS --

Prospective participants are invited to electronically submit a full paper (6 pages, about 4500 words, pdf or WinWord file) of their original work following the IEEE instructions available on the website of the conference. Please visit the conference website for full track information.

Each paper will undergo a rigorous peer review process involving at least two reviewers. Proceedings will be made available by IEEE in CD format.

-- TRACKS --

Infrastructure for Digital Ecosystems

Digital Business Ecosystems

Digital Ecosystem Technologies

Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) for Digital Ecosystems

Trust and Risks in Digital Ecosystems

Security and Privacy in Digital Ecosystems

Intelligent Digital Ecosystems

Digital Domain Ecosystems

Interdisciplinary Research

Students' Research

-- CAIRNS, AUSTRALIA --

Cairns is located in Australia's tropical far North Queensland on the eastern sea board and has its own international airport. February is in the middle of what is known as the 'wet' season. Tropical downpours are common in the late afternoons and overnight, sometimes with dramatic lightning displays - but don't let that deter you! There is a beauty about the monsoonal 'Wet' season and its soothing, greening effect that is very attractive.

Cairns in sheltered on the coast by the Great Barrier Reef with its 400 kinds of coral and 1,500 types of fish. As well as the Great Barrier Reef, there are rainforests in the Atherton Tableland to the west of Cairns and to the south is Mission Beach with 14km of white sandy beaches. To the north, there is the charming old town of Port Douglas as well as the Daintree Rainforest and its daily barge service to Cape Tribulation National Park, and Cooktown, close to Endeavour National Park where excellent examples of Aboriginal rock art can be found, and beyond that is the wilderness of Cape York Peninsula to explore.

In and around Cairns you will find a lot to do. We highly recommend  that you extend your conference stay and explore this unique area of the world. We have included an additional day of sightseeing at the end of the conference on the Kuranda Commentary Train which travels 34km through steep mountains, tunnels, over bridges, through forests from Cairns to Kuranda and will include an Aboriginal cultural show. More details can be found closer to date on the conference website.

-- INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD --

Bogdan Wilamowski

Leopoldo G Franquelo

Okyay Kaynak

Francesco Nachira

Christian Huemer

Andreas Wombacher

Xinghuo Yu

Fabio Casati

Armando Colombo

Giuseppina Passiante

Prem Chand

Mukesh Mohania

-- GENERAL CHAIRS --

Elizabeth Chang - Curtin University of Technology, Australia

Ernesto Damiani - University of Milan, Italy

-- TECHNICAL PROGRAM CHAIR --

Tharam Dillon - University of Technology Sydney, Australia

-- TECHNICAL PROGRAM VICE-CHAIRS --

Farookh Khadeer Hussain, Curtin University of Technology, Australia

William Gardner - University of Technology Sydney, Australia

-- CONFERENCE MANAGER --

Sonya Rosbotham

CEEBI, Curtin University of Technology, Australia

dest@cbs.curtin.edu.au

Curtin University of Technology

PO Box U1987, Perth WA 6845

AUSTRALIA

T: + 61 8 9266 7684

F: + 61 8 9266 7548