Press/Media Releases

FELLOWSHIPS FOR INTERNET MEET
By H. AMIR KHALID

The Star, Tuesday, December 12, 2000

KUALA LUMPUR: The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (Apricot) 2001 next February will provide 20 fellowships for deserving local attendees.

Wendy Liew, chairman of co-host Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry Malaysia (Pikom), said priority would be given to students, academicians and technical staff from deserving non-commercial organisations.

These fellows would be able to attend the Apricot 2001 conference and technical workshop sessions, and would also be provided with accommodation.

This is in addition to a similar number of international fellowships, said Apricot 2001 executive council member Izumi Aizo.

The week-long event, hosted by Pikom and the Energy, Communications and Multimedia Ministry, will be held at the Putra World Trade Centre here from Feb 25 to March 2.

It will feature technical workshops, a two-day conference, "birds-of-a-feather'' meetings and regional working group meetings.

Apricot started out in in Singapore in 1996 as a technical conference organised by volunteers, but has since become the main gathering for the regional Internet community.

Subsequent Apricot gatherings were held in Hong Kong, Manila and Seoul.

Liew said she expected Apricot 2001 to draw some 600 attendees from around the world, including 200 to 300 from Malaysia.

The conference will include two prominent speakers, telecoms consultant David Isenberg and Anders Comstedt, chief executive of the company that offered the world's first dark-fibre service in Stockholm.

The rest of the conference and technical workshop programmes were still being drawn up, and should be announced by mid-January, Liew said.

More information on the conference can be obtained from Pikom ( http://www.pikom.org.my ) or at http://www.apricot2001.net.

Registration is expected to cost US$250 (RM950) a head for the conference, and US$150 (RM570) for the tutorial sessions.

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