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CommerceNet Singapore's eGlobal Series kicked off the 5th September 2001. Some 50 participants comprising of mainly IT players and learning institutions attended the one-day Conference at the Holiday Inn Parkview Hotel.

The Conference was officially opened by His Excellency Abdul Moiz Bokhari, High Commissioner of Pakistan who welcomed the participants to the eGlobal Conference series and invited them to the upcoming one in Lahore scheduled for 27th-28th of October 2001. He explained the importance of IT in the global economy and the various incentive schemes that are already in place in Pakistan to attract foreign investment in the ICT industries. Keynote speaker, Dr Amy Shuen has a very distinguished career in the academics, consulting and VC areas and she is currently the CEO of the Silicon Valley Strategic Group. She discussed the need for innovation in a changing economic and technological environment.

After tea break, Mr Michael Henry from Accenture described the changing landscape for mobile commerce and how that had been evolved from e-commerce. He gave an interesting account on how the emergence of various m-commerce devices has impacted the lifestyles of the consumers. Mr Ng Yoke Thim from Netlife went on to explain the importance of a secure e-payment infrastructure to facilitate the conduct of e-commerce and m-commerce. Apparently, having a secure payment system is not a sufficient condition, Dr Toh See Kiat (Chairman of CommerceTrust and CommerceNet) brought up the issues of building trust in cyberspace - a key element in enabling cyber-commerce.

The speakers in the afternoon session focused on the practical aspect of m-commerce. Mr Michael Stephens from Compaq talked about the business drivers for wireless adoption and the trend and growth of wireless and broadband Internet. Moving on, Mr Peter Ittensohn of Microsoft discussed how mobile commerce will change users' lives and the various hardware/software that have influence the mobile data lifestyle. Mr Moses Ma, Managing Partner of Next Generation Ventures, another US speaker shared his Silicon Valley experience on how the Internet and e-commerce are transforming every aspects of business. Before the afternoon tea break, Mr Michael Warren, Deputy CEO of DataOne presented a high level brief of the current state of the regional e-Business marketplace. He also looked at the Asian potential and outlined the growth factors and the growth of Internet Data Centre.

The last three speakers came from varied background. Mr Alex Kuan from Nortel Networks examined how an e-Business could garner profitability by using Intelligent Internet. While Mr Kwan Yew Beng of Syntegra looked at a mutli-channel CRM to enhance profitability. Last but not least, Mr David Hwang from EC Gateway highlighted the emerging software and outsourcing opportunities in Pakistan. The Conference ended with a positive note about the prospects of the global e-commerce as well as m-commerce.

The feedback from CommerceNet Singapore inaugural eGlobal series was encouraging and supportive as most participants found it educational and relevant. It remains for us to thank the participants and hope that they could join us again in Lahore in the not too distant future.