World Wide Web Consortium Launches Office in Mainland China

Author(s) and publish date

Published:

W3C Invites Technical Experts of a Rapidly Growing Economy to Join Web Standardization Activities

 

http://www.w3.org/ -- 4 April 2006 -- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announces the launch of its China Office on 27 April 2006. W3C, through its newest Office, invites experts in China to join the international project of developing Web standards at W3C. The Office is based at the Advanced Computing Technologies, School of Computer Science & Engineering of Beihang University in Beijing, China.

An opening ceremony will mark the start of two days of presentations and panels (27-28 April 2006 at the Ruxin Conference Center of Beihang University in Beijing). Among those attending the opening ceremony are Dr. Steve Bratt, CEO of W3C, and representatives of leading industries and research institutes in China. Representatives from Chinese industry and academia will speak and the W3C staff will present work on the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, the Internationalization Activity, the Rich Web Client Activity, the Semantic Web Activity, and the Voice Browser Activity. The list of speakers at the event include:

China’s IT Industry Exhibiting Significant Growth

In recent years, China has been experiencing significant growth in the information technology (IT) industry at close to 20% yearly. China’s IT industry is attracting both domestic and foreign customers, which led to the founding of several renowned IT enterprises: Lenovo, Langchao, UFIDA, Baidu, etc. The opening of China’s markets encourages more multinational corporations to set up local subsidiaries. China is developing technologies in Web services, Grid computing, e-commerce, e-government, CRM, networking, telecommunications, mobile Internet and mobile Web, robotics, embedded software, etc. It holds tremendous promise as an IT leader in Asia.

With demands from both internal and international markets, it is important that the Web industry in China use international standards, and actively participate in developing them. Feedback on issues like internationalization and mobile Web usage in this enormous market need to be relayed back to international standardization work. To achieve its goal of the full potential for the Web, W3C needs Chinese expertise. By opening its Mainland China Office, W3C actively engages the Chinese industrial and academic communities in the development of international Web standards.

School of Computer Science & Engineering of Beihang University

Beihang University is a respected university in China with more than 50 years' history. Beihang University has actively and intensively developed its international academic exchange and collaboration programs.

The School of Computer Science and Engineering of Beihang University ranks among the top computer science schools in China with more than 130 full-time faculty members. The School hosts a national key laboratory, a key laboratory of the Ministry of Education, and two key laboratories of Beijing city. It received numerous national prizes, and has an extensive record of publishing in international journals. Its staff and students are participating in 138 external research projects with a total research funding in 2005 exceeding RMB150 million (around 15M€ or 18M$).

About W3C Offices

As its Members work to realize the full potential of the Web, W3C collaborates with regional organizations wishing to further W3C’s mission. The W3C Offices assist with promotion efforts in local languages, help broaden W3C’s geographical base, and encourage international participation in W3C Activities. Including the new Office in Mainland China, W3C currently has 16 Offices in Australia, the Benelux countries, Mainland China, Germany and Austria, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Morocco, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom and Ireland.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

 

Contact Americas, Australia --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and Middle East --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94 or +33.676.86.33.41
Contact Asia --
Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

Related RSS feed

Subscribe to our press release feed