The forum has brought together senior government representatives from the Baltic Sea region and other countries, high level officials and experts from European Commission and international organisations, information society leaders and chief researchers, as well as CEO�s, CIO�s and top level executives from ICT companies and other high-ranking delegates. Altogether 594 delegates participated at different Forum events. They represented 32 countries � Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, Ukraine and USA.

The event was organised by Data Media Group and Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association (LIKTA) on April 8-11, 2008 in Riga, Latvia. The Honorary chairman for the event was Valdis Zatlers, the President of Latvia. The Forum has been supported by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). The motto of the forum was �Building Effective Partnership Networks�.
All of the forum materials, presentations, events and related publications can be found at www.ebaltics.com/forum2008. Planning is underway already for the �Baltic IT&T 2009 Forum: eBaltics�, preliminary scheduled for April 1-3, 2009.

Some of Baltic IT&T 2008 Highlights
Session �Qualitative Education for All in the 21st Century� explored the challenges and opportunities of delivering that quality of education and the role of ICT therein. Particular sessions were devoted to long-term strategies and policy for E-skills in Europe and Baltic Sea Region countries, general and higher education, as well as life long learning and employability issues.Session Innovative e-services provided best practice of innovative E-services in public sector, shared different access and reuse policies.

CIO/ICT industry session was organised for the first time on the Baltic IT&T Forum and it was presenting the growing ICT and CIO�s role in organisation, technology and market trends as well as innovative approaches and services in the ICT industry.

Session Innovative e-services for SMEs was focused at presenting the state of the art in the field of E-business, the exploration of perspectives and challenges, as well as practical aspects such as security of different payment systems, legislation and standards.

Workshop: Security − Internet and Information Systems featured a professional discussion of information security, covering such issues as awareness raising, management of information security, legal aspects of this process, as well as specific information security incidents and how they have been resolved. There were organised also two panel discussions: �Everyday Security − responsibility chain� and �Who is responsible for information security awareness education (children and grown-ups)?�

In the Seminar: E-health ready hospital health service provider managers were able to find what are the preconditions of a successful preparation and realisation of E-health plans. Hospitals, government agencies, technology vendors and software developers shared their experience and showed practical demos − solutions like patient management systems (PMS, EPR), enterprise resource management systems (ERP), radiology and visual diagnostics archiving (RIS, PACS). Solutions were also practically demonstrated for individual participants in a separate demo hall.

The Telecentre Leaders Forum − Europe (TLF-E) brought together 50 telecentre practitioners, program leaders and development partners from NGOs across Europe. Through an interactive and participatory-driven programme, practitioners took an active role in shaping the dialogue and sharing skills, comparing experiences and learning best practices. More specifically, participants contributed to development of the Telecentre.Europe network, exchanged ideas and insights on shared challenges faced by telecentre practitioners across Europe.

InnoSME Workshop presented the InnoSME project, it�s tools and systems for SME participation, exposition of good practices from other SMEs in RTD FP, practical case studies.