Rudy Burger is leaving as CEO of Media Lab Europe in Dublin, the spin-off of MIT's Media Lab in Massachusetts. The rather bland press release says Nicholas Negroponte had 'announced the departure' of Burger and said the lab is in a phase of 'consolidation'. Burger will stay on as an adviser to the board and as a visiting scientist. Prof Kenneth Haase of MIT will be the interim director.
9:57:08 PM  #   your two cents []

Back from a breakfast at which the E-Minister Mary Hanafin and Iona Technologies co-founder/chairman Chris Horn addressed some issues around the state of the information society in Ireland (as opposed to the almost-invisible-these-days Information Society Commission, whose silent voice should have been loudly heard over the past two years, not least during the election, but that's another topic).

Nothing strikingly new was said (I'll do something for tomorrow's paper, probably); but I was interested in Chris Horn's suggestion that perhaps government IT budgets across all departments should be co-ordinated out of the E-Minister's office, and a suggestion from the floor that 1) the government should be campaigning to create awareness of the benefits of getting online to help build public awareness and confidence, and that 2) perhaps some kind of quality marker could be used on Irish websites that comply with a range of high standards on usability, privacy policy, etc -- similar to the very successful 'Guaranteed Irish' campaign -- to promote awareness of these issues and general quality as well.

The Minister was clearly uncomfortable with some questions directed from the floor on issues like interconnect, promoting the development of the digital media industry, and bandwidth. That would not have impressed the audience. On the other hand she is a very good speaker and is clearly getting on top of many aspects of her very large brief. Her commitment comes across and government contacts say she has the potential to be extremely capable in her role if she wants to truly embrace it. A problem for her, I think, will be her lack of real power to compel any minister or department to do anything. On the other hand, her role of chief whip and her position at the cabinet table leaves her in a position where, as she said half-jokingly herself, she can 'blackmail' TDs and ministers into compliance! Chris Horn suggested that her role as a junior minister in the Dept of Defense might be advantageous too as she can call out the army if the ministers don't behave...

12:57:09 PM  #   your two cents []