The First Eurolat-IS Thematic Workshop
Guatemala, 3-4 February 2000

Electronic Commerce
&
New Ways of Working

Venue: 				Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional 
Centro Iberamericano de Formacion de la Antigua
Antigua, Guatemala 
Organisation:			Prof. Rafael Mendia, Universidad Francisco Marroquin
				rmendia@fisicc-ufm.edu

The Programme Committee

José-María Figueres Olsen	President – FUNDES, Costa Rica
Foundation for Sustainable Development in Latin America,
Former President of Costa Rica.
Julio Escobar			Director  - Centauri, Technology Consulting, Panama.
Georges Grunberg		Member of the IST Advisory Group to the European Commission,
President - AYG Consulting,
Former Vice President of Bull
Jesus Claudios Villasante	European Commission DG for Information Society 
Head of Electronic Commerce and New ways of Working
Michel Bosco			European Commission DG for Information Society,
Head of International Co-operation in the IST Programme.

Representatives from industry and research, as well as from banks and business organisations, from the countries of Latin America and from the European Union, are invited to the First Thematic Workshop of the Eurolat-IS initiative. Organised by the Eurolat-IS Steering Committee with support from the European Commission, the workshop is entitled ‘Electronic Commerce and New Ways of Working’. The goal is to explore ways in which to promote the introduction and take-up of Electronic Commerce in Latin American countries on the basis of Euro-Latin American scientific, technical and industrial collaboration.

Electronic Commerce is a broad concept ranging from advertising on the Web and electronic trading, to web- ‘call centres’ for handling customer queries and providing aftersale service, to the sharing of business processes across company boundaries. On the one hand electronic commerce is essential for the competitivity and productivity of traditional big business. It provides businesses with tools to integrate, to participate in global markets and to directly access global trading systems. On the other hand information and communication technologies facilitate new ways of working which can provide new opportunities for small, medium size and micro-enterprise. Electronic Commerce could provide new ways for communities to trade, to do business, to exploit new markets and to improve their quality of life through increased earning opportunities.

Many people nowadays share this vision of the opportunity provided by electronic commerce and new ways of working. However few people know how to plot paths from current ways of working to the new ways of working which may provide greater prosperity. It is intended that this Eurolat-IS Thematic Workshop will lead to joint actions on issues of mutual interest for both European and Latin American partners. Actions which will shed light on this new terrain and take us some way along a path to greater prosperity. 

About the Eurolat-IS initiative

Eurolat-IS is an EU funded initiative to boost Euro-Latin American collaboration in areas of application of Information Society Technologies. In particular to boost the number of concrete actions undertaken by consortia of European and Latin American companies, researchers and intermediaries, in areas of importance for social and economic development in the Latin American region. This objective will be achieved via the implementation of a series of Thematic Action Plans.

The Thematic Action Plans provide flexible pragmatic instruments for promoting Euro-Latin American collaboration in Information Society Technologies. They will be formulated via focused discussions at the Eurolat-IS Thematic Workshops. They will be implemented via specific activities which arise out of the Thematic Workshops. The emphasis will be on actions to be taken immediately, given the current means available, so as to achieve longer term social and economic objectives.

The Thematic Workshops are also ‘collaboration brokerage’ events. The immediate outcome of each workshop will be a series of concrete proposals and partnerships for joint Euro-Latin American activities related to ‘Electronic Commerce’ and ‘New Ways of Working’, which rely on the innovative application of information and communication technologies. The Proceedings of the Thematic Workshop will be published as a ‘Thematic Action Plan’.  This document will describe the current environment for Euro-Latin American collaboration in the application of Electronic Commerce. The Thematic Action Plan will present specific requests for collaboration, as well as proposals for concrete actions and recommendations arising out of the Thematic Workshop. They will be disseminated to decision makers, supliers, end-users and other stake-holders in the Euro-Latin American region.

The Thematic Workshop Structure

The Thematic Workshop will start with a short plenary session in which issues related to the introduction of Electronic Commerce are evoked by keynote speakers from Latin America and the European Union. 

Most of this two day event will be taken up by parrallel workshop sessions for collaboration brokerage. A series of five sessions animated by brokers from the EU and Latin America, will lead the participants throught the stages of building proposals for collaboration. These sessions will build upon one another to focus on:
•	the definition of the action,
•	the impact of the action,
•	the technological challenges to be overcome,
•	the competencies and consortium members needed to successfully complete the work.
Finally the groups will agree upon a follow-up action plan to complete the writing of  proposals, and finalise documents suitable for submission to the IST and other programmes.

The final session will be a plenary session. The proposals will be briefly presented by the brokers and a panel of experts will advise on what programmes may provide support for the proposed actions. Strategies will be discussed as to how to support actions for which no source of support currently exists. 

The workshop is by invitation only. Those interested should request an invitation and provide a collaboration pre-proposal. Participants will be invited based on the chance of matching partners being present. The number of participants will be limited to 60-100. The themes of the parallel brokerage sessions will be decided in mid-January based on the requests for participation and the themes put forward by those seeking collaboration. A limited amount of finance is available to support the participation of SMEs and academics.

Possible Themes for Collaboration

The Thematic Workshop sets out to identify issues of mutual interest for European and Latin American experts. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of specific areas in which collaboration may be considered:

	Global Marketplace for SMEs 
•	Business requirements at the level of the Small and medium sized enterprise in Latin America, at the level of micro-enterprise, the co-operative, the autonomous municipality, at the level of remote rurual  communities, at then level of specific communities in very large cities.
•	New business opportunities in sectors such as tourism, agro-Industry, traditional industries and small manufacturing, business services such as marketing, retail, distribution, as well as import-export.

Technological and Infrastructural Issues
•	Infrastructure to support Electronic Commerce, 
•	The challenges of deploying infrastructure in remote or sparsely populated areas,
•	Adding value to existing infrastructure,
•	The integration of different electronic communities.
			
  	Social and Employment Issues 
•	Social integration and quality of life,
•	The impact of Electronic Commerce and new ways of working on social and employment conditions, 
•	The availability of skills,
•	Building awareness and promoting technology take-up.

  	Confidence, Legal and Regulatory Issues 
•	Electronic transactions: Legality of electronic contracts, digital signatures, third parties.
•	Consumer protection: Privacy, liberty, liability, consumer rights, settlement of disputes, mediation.
•	Advertising protection:  The right of the consumer, accuracy of information, intellectual property. 
•	Confidence building technologies and security systems.
•	The role of public administration.

Participants from Latin America are expected to provide:
•	Background on the situation in their country or region.
•	An understanding of specific challenges faced in Latin America.
•	Proposals for specific actions which address local needs, which could help boost the uptake of electronic commerce and increase local capacity to participate in the global marketplace.

Participants from Europe are expected to provide:
•	Examples of activities in the domain of electronic commerce or New Ways of Working, which have worked well in Europe and which may be applicable and relevant in Latin America.
•	Guidance in the formulation of concrete proposals for joint EU - Latin American activities.

The Publication of a Thematic Action Plan

The published Thematic Action Plan will incorporate the requests for collaboration from the all those who provide collaboration pre-proposals, whether or not they participate in the brokerage event. In addition it will contain material from both EU and Latin American experts, designed to improve mutual awareness of the opportunities for joint activities, intended to improve the knowledge base for future collaboration. It is expected that Latin American contributors will provide:

Case-studies of  situations or ways of organising business in Latin America which may not exist in Europe and which may benefit from new technological approaches:
•	Forms of organisation or business networking that may be unfamiliar to the business community in Europe.
•	New IST solutions which have been or need to be developed to support such forms of organisation. 

Descriptions of local and regional initiatives to promote the take-up of information technologies in electronic commerce:
•	Projects, pilots or test beds carried out either in countries or regions of Latin America. How were these financed? Who drove the initiative? Are follow-up actions planned?
•	Existing programmes to promote take-up of electronic commerce, promoted by governments, NGOs, banks, foundations and other organisations, by the private sector or by local cooperatives.
•	Existing or planned programmes to help companies acquire technology, acquire suitable skilled personel, and to adapt to the changing business environment, to invest in technological upgrading.

Descriptions of the rate and manner of take-up of Electronic Commerce in Latin America:
•	Human resources: Analysis of the capacity of regions to supply skilled personel. 
•	Connectivity: The number of PCs in homes and in companies. The number of companies with access to the internet, with web-pages, with commercial sites.
•	Internet Service Povision: Growth in internet access or exploitation as a function of sector (ie. retail, tourism, transport, import expert, manufacturing, traditional industries, service industries, other)   
•	The adoption and use of intranets.
•	The existence of secure sites and the capacity to support secure transactions.
•	The existence of smart card and other electronic cash related issues.

It is expected that European Union contributors will provide:

Case-studies of actions which have been carried out in Europe and which have been successful in addressing electronic commerce related issues:
•	In particular in industrial sectors such as tourism, retail, import-export, small-manufacturing, traditional industries, services for small businesses.
•	Producer-consumer relationships, marketing, after sales and product support.
•	Successful pilot and demonstration actions.
•	The role of take-up actions such as assessments, good practise and first user actions.
•	The establishment of test beds and the possible interconnection of EU and Latin American test-beds.

Strategies for growing limited small scale projects and demonstrations into large scale actions which reach larger numbers of companies and could have a macro-economic effect. 

Analysis of the interaction between technological and human issues related to the introduction of new IST applications.

Issues that continue to provide challenges in Europe, that require further research and new approaches.

Articles and other material for possible inclusion in the Thematic Action Plan may be sent at anytime to the Eurolat-IS Co-ordination Unit.

Contact Persons & Further Information

Organisation of the Thematic Workshop:		Prof. Rafael Mendia				
Universidad Francisco Marroquin			
	 					Guatemala Ciudad, Guatemala C.A.            
						Tel: 	502-3314826
Fax: 	502-3311645
Email:	rmendia@mailhub.fisicc-ufm.edu

The Eurolat-IS Co-ordination Unit:		Universidad Politécnica de Madridh
Tel:	34-91-336.5964
Fax: 	34-91-336.5974
Email: 	ngarcia@vi.upm.es

The Eurolat-IS Steering Committee Secretariat:	Office for Science and Technology
Presidency of the Spanish Government
Tel: 	34-91-594.8626, 05
Fax: 	34-91-592.8641
Email: 	eurolatis@cicyt.es

The Eurolat-IS Website:				http://www.eurolatis.upm.es/

The Programme Schedule

Wednesday - 2 February 2000

Transport

Throughout the day a regular shuttle bus will carry participants from the airport in Guatemala to the Radisson Hotel in Antigua.

Registration

Participants will be able to register at the conference venue, the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, Centro Iberamericano de Formacion de la Antigua, in the City of Antigua, about 40 kms from Guatemala City.

Welcome Reception

19.30 Hours	Welcome Reception (cocktail at either the Radisson, Casa Santa Domingo or the Centro Iberamericano in Antigua, to be decided)

Thursday - 3 February 2000

09.00 Hours	Registration at the Conference Venue
Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional
Centro Iberamericano de Formacion de la Antigua
		
		Morning Coffee Provided

The VIP Session

10.00 Hours	Opening Session: Chaired by Fernando Aldana, Director General of the
Office of Science and Technology, the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, Spain.
		‘ Latam perspective’		VIP from Guatemala
		‘ Latam perspective ’		Jose-Maria Figueres Olsen - President
FUNDES
		‘ EU Industry Perspective ’	Mr. Francis Lorentz - Chairman
						French National Task Force on Electronic Commerce
‘ The IST programme ’		G. Metakides - Director
						European Commission IST Programme
		(Private Press Meeting for the VIPs)

Parallel Sessions

It is expected that the brokerage will conducted in three parallel sessions. The themes will be announced in January. They will be decided on the basis of the offers for collaboration received.

12.00 Hours - Brokerage Workshops Part 1: The brokers present the goals and objectives of the exercise. The participants introduce themselves and their ideas. The sub-groups are defined on the basis of the pre-proposal ideas or on the latest revision of the pre-proposals. The sub-groups identify one another, exchange cards and get aquanted. (coffee provided).

13.00 Hours	Lunch at the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional

Afternoon Session

15.00 Hours - Brokerage Workshops Part 2: The sub-groups start work on the definition of their proposal ideas. They will appoint writers to ensure the elaboration of a written document throughout the 5 sessions. This document will reflect the shared understanding of the members of the group. The emphasis at this stage will be on identifying the specific benefits of the action for Latin America and for the EU.

16.30 Hours	Coffee Break

17.00 Hours - Brokerage Workshops Part 3: The sub-groups turn their attention to the technological challenges posed by the realisation of the project. These challenges are to be understood in the widest sense, to include all organisational, procedural and human factors which should be addressed.

18.30 Hours	Break for the evening

Evening

19.30 Hours	Banquet and Show at the Radisson Hotel Antigua 	

Friday - 4 February 2000

Morning Parallel Sessions

09.00 Hours - Brokerage Workshops Part 4: The sub-groups now focus on the composition of their proposal consortia. They identify which partner will lead the consortium and complete the task of consortium building? They identify partners to define, develop, test, use or disseminate the technology or other output fo the action. They define the role of each partner, and the benefit of the action for each partner. They provide profiles for the partners required to complete each consortium.

11.00 Hours	Break for Coffee

11.30 Hours - Brokerage Workshops Part 5: The purpose of this final meeting is to integrate all the elements developed to date. It will result in the completion of a single document for each proposal, consisting of the following elements:
•	The definition of the action and its objectives (1  page).
•	The description of the social or economic issues to be addressed. The potential scope and impact of the action, the benefit for Latin America and for the EU (1 page).
•	The description of technological challenges to be addressed. The current status, the main steps required to go beyond existing technology, inlcuding human, organisational and procedural issues (2 pages).
•	The escription of the consortium, the partner profiles, roles and efforts (3 pages).
Finally the members should provide a schedule indicating the actions, actors and deadlines required to complete the writing of the proposal (1 page).

13.00 Hours	Lunch at the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional

Final Plenary Session

15.00 Hours	Plenary Session and Proposal Clinic.
		Chaired by Georges Grunberg - IST Special Advisory Group to the European Commission.

The facilitators from parallel sessions will present a synthesis of the identified priorities, the proposals for actions, and the recommendations that have arisen in the brokerage sessions.

A panel of experts familiar with Commission and other programmes will provide advice on how proposals may be financed. In particular strategies will be discussed for the promotion of actions which are not eligible for any immediate source of support.

16.30 Hours	Coffee Break

17.00 Hours	Concluding Remarks
Closing Ceremony

Saturday - 5 February 2000

A charter flight may be organised to help to reduce the cost to particpants of the trip to Tikal. The cost per participant will depend on the number of people travelling. The full package is expected to come to about $200 per participant.

The Eurolat-IS web-site should be checked regularly for the latest updates.

The anticpated schedule is as follows:

08.00 hours	Early morning charter flight to Tikal
		Visit to the ancient Maya site

13.00 hours	Lunch

15.00  hours	Meeting of the Eurolat-IS Steering Committee

19.30 hours	Dinner 

Stay overnight in Tikal

Sunday – 6 February 2000

08.00 hours 	Return via charter flight to Guatemala city.