Session 7, themed “Contents & Creativity” started at 11:30am, with Thomas Spiller as the Chairman and Jean-Pierre Chamoux as the moderator.

The first speaker was Amadou Daffe, CEO of Coders4Africa, USA. He introduced us to the opportunities of improvement in Africa thanks to the ICT sector. Indeed, not-so-ancient history teaches us that after giving knowledge and access to technology to coders & content creators, the results are often impressive, with communities of innovating people growing by themselves and reaching extraordinary levels. He then presented several examples of mobile applications & games developed by Nigerians, Ghanians and Kenyans. According to him, Kenya is the first developing country to have an open government data portal. What is really missing now in Africa are the investors and venture capitalists which are the only ones who can make happen the digital revolution there.

The next speaker, Ellwood Kerkeslager, CEO of Information Futures, USA, underlined the need of a personalized approach to the market of ICT in Africa, which is completely different from the others.

Afterwards Denis Gardin, Vice-President of EADS CTO, France presented an innovative project involving augmented reality called MiRA. Mr. Gardin stressed that taking advantage of augmented reality can improve the quality of manufacturing. MiRA has been tested for the quality inspection of aircrafts wings, bringing the Digital Mockup to reality. It can be applied to several fields, and until now it has been a great success.

The next one to speak was Blaz Golob, Founding Director of the Centre for eGovernance Development for S.E.E., Slovenia. He stressed the importance of setting priorities for e-government, and the need of the collaboration of governments to implement the policies established by the EU commissions. The pillars of new development are: integrated growth, smart growth and sustainable growth. The next point was the necessity of training for public administration and citizens in order to improve their interaction with e-government services. E-government services, he said, should reflect the specific needs of each region.

Franco Grossi, Professor State University of Kazan & University of Trieste, Italy, talked about holistic ICT, and the innovative approach to it. He pointed out that we live in an era of knowledge  in which ICT is integrated in the economy forming a social system which enables seamless communication between every individual.

Olivier Las Vergnas, General Delegate for Inclusion, Training and Professional Activities, and Director of the Paris La Villette “Cité des métiers”, Universcience, France, presented the history of smart cities in France.

Eric Legale, Managing Director Issy Media-City of Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, talked about digital technologies which are employed in order to share history of the place with visitors and inhabitants. He also discussed the use of touch screens to offer a real immersion in the place history, and tablets, too. One of the main take-outs of his presentation is that well-deployed app offers all the info you need on your hands.

The final speaker, Manlio Romanelli, President M-Cube S.p.A., Italy, focused on connecting location and content, marketing intelligence systems and developing an omni-channel.