IV Congress of CyberSociety 2009 12-29 November 2009 Online Congress The Observatory for CyberSociety <http://www.cibersociedad.net/> and CitiLab-Cornellà <http://www.citilab.eu/> organized the IV Congress of CyberSociety, a Living Congress that is taking place in different phases, and whose period of discussion of online communication will take place between 12 and 29 November 2009. The conference this year is structured around six broad themes, grouping them in various working groups with specific themes: - Education - Politics - Communication - Science and Research - Economy - Culture Here you can find a list with all the Working Groups of the Congress: http://www.cibersociedad.net/congres2009/en/gts/ Communications or "papers" are at the core of the Congress. Therefore, they must be framed and appeal directly to the issues presented by any of the Working Groups. This year, it was included the possibility of communication in different formats (text, audio, video or slide show). The working languages of the Congress and the ones in which the organization will accept submissions are: English, Catalan, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese. The organization of the conference will provide an automatic translation system for all web submissions. ===E-waste management Working Group=== The development of the CyberSociety and its intensive use of technology is also associated with a huge production of electronic equipment: from personal computers and mobile phones to the major data centers which constitute the complex physical network of Internet, production and consumption of electronic devices play a central role in the economy of the Information Society. E-waste is the general label given to all kinds of waste generated from electrical and electronic equipment. With the exponential rise in the production and consumption of such devices, the amount of e-waste generated each year has become an issue which also grows bigger with the rapid spread of the use technology in the different aspects of our everyday life. There are different issues which call for attention regarding e-waste management, along all stages of the electronic devices' production cycle, from design and development, through consumption and use, up to recycling and disposal. Regarding the topic of consumption, for example, a point to be explored is the concept of "obsolescence" and the roles of mass media and the industry of electronics in the construction of consumers' "need" to constantly change their laptops, mobiles, cameras and other equipments. Another issue is how to properly dispose e-waste, since it can not be discarded alongside household garbage because of the large amount of toxic substances present in these devices which can severely pollute the environment. Also, electronic products contain huge amounts of applied knowledge, and to simply throw them away is a loss of all this knowledge. Furthermore, one of the still unresolved problems related to the egalitarian dissemination of access to computers and the Internet among disadvantaged groups, specially in developing countries, is the impossibility of many people and associations to afford the prices of the devices. The high cost of some of the equipment, services and appliances is still a key factor for the existence of the "digital divide" which could also be addressed by the use of supposedly obsolete technologies. Thus it is clear that the issue of what to do with e-waste touches many issues that need to be discussed and disseminated, from a technical point of view of how to make the process more sustainable and cause as less impact as possible to the environment, to the different strategies of appropriation, re-signification and reuse of e-waste. In this context, our proposal for this working group is to discuss the different issues related to electronic waste, through reflection on data and case studies about how communities, NGOs, companies and governments are dealing with the problem, the different strategies and public policies on the issue, and possible environmental and social solutions. We encourage communications in video format (surveys, documentaries etc) and text (articles, reports etc). We also plan to organize remote round-tables using video-conference technology. If you are interested in participating, please contact the coordinators of the WG. The coordinators of this WG are part of the projects obsoletos.org from Spain, lixoeletronico.org from Brazil and the MetaReciclagem network http://rede.metareciclagem.org ===Requirements .=== http://www.cibersociedad.net/congres2009/en/estatic/bases-para-la-presentaci... ===Key dates=== Submission deadline: September 15, 2009 Online discussion period: 12-29 November 2009 -- Daniela de Carvalho Matielo WebLab.tk http:// <http://weblab.tk/>www.dacamat.com.br | http://weblab.tk | http://lixoeletronico.org ASSINE O MANIFESTO DO LIXO ELETRÔNICO http://lixoeletronico.org/manifesto "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say an uncommon-place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles." ~ Jack Kerouac