CERN and, more specifically, the IT Department plays a key role in the development of the Information Society.

The World-wide Web was born in the CN Division, the former name of the IT Department.  In the early 90's, CERN became the major hub of the Internet infrastructure in Europe. Today, the IT department hosts the EGEE project, deploying the major Grid Infrastructure in Europe.

IT Department contributes regularly to events which maintain the memory as well as demonstrate today's  vitality of CERN involvement in the development of the Information Society.

RSIS Conference

The department was the originator of the RSIS (Role of Science in the Information Society) conference held at CERN in December 2003.  IT contribution included the responsibility for organizing the projects into work packages.

SIS-forum

IT was responsible for the design and implementation of the SIS-forum, an exhibition organized at Palexpo in the framework of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).

The organization included 32 people from 4 divisions (ETT, EP, IT, HR).

After a Call for Content, 42 projects from 32 organizations world-wide were selected.

The culminating event was the inauguration in the presence of Mr. Kofi Annan.

Audience

The overall WSIS exhibition received about 38,000 visits.The SIS-forum site received more than half a million visits during the month following the event.