Luminaries tip up in Taipei for Congress

WCIT 2000 The twelfth 2000 World Congress on Info Technology will officially open for business in one hour's time, with a cast of top luminaries preaching their views on IT, the internet and e-commerce.

Speakers today winclude winsome Carly Fiorina, CEO of HP; Stan Shih of Acer; John Rockefeller IV; Ericsson's president Kurt Hellstrom and top nobs from MIT, Andersen Consulting and others.

But tomorrow's list of speakers is what many are waiting for (sorry Carly, Stan and Kurt), with Bill Gates from Microsoft scheduled to speak at 9 AM, local time. Will he be here? Seventeen hundred delegates from 85 countries will be very disappointed if he isn't. Gates is immediately followed tomorrow by Rob Young, chairman and founder of Linux firm Red Hat -- followed by John Chambers from Cisco, and later in the day Corel's Michael Cowpland.

Wednesday we will hear from Patricia Hewitt, the UK minister for small businessmen and e-commerce, who will talk on information age government. We're probably likely to miss Dr William P. Magee (no relation), founder of Operation Smile Inc, because we'll be flying out of Taipei later that day.

The Register will bring you news and gossip from the Congress as it happens. ®