Messages from the Organizers of the Workshop on Internet to Support Social Welfare

Over the past few years, the Internet has been revolutionizing the way we communicate by technical advances such as fiber optic networks, high-speed IP switching, DSL and CATV broadband accesses, along with the increasing performance of PCs and workstations. This growth has helped to identify the need for the Internet to support a broader scope of communications, particularly for social welfare such as health care, medical care, and so on.

Recent events have shown that communication via the Internet is more effective in natural disasters, power outages, fiber cable cuts, etc. E-mails and WWW-based information exchange are robust and invulnerable due to the Internet's flexible routing and information transfer. The Internet is also expected to improve lifeline communications. As an example, emergency calls conveyed by e-mails or instant messages can also include locations, based on GPS, and the time they occur, by which ambulance and hospitals may advance their treatment. These features will contribute to further securing our social welfare and infrastructure.

The use of tele-health, tele-rehab and pervasive computing (e.g., to create smart homes) in support of aging, disability and independence is another topic of this Workshop. A large conference named ICADI (International Conference on Aging, Disability and Independence) was held December 4, 2003 in Washington DC on this topic (See http://www.asaging.org/icadi/03/index.cfm). This workshop is to organize a post ICADI Workshop, with the objective of addressing the Asian perspective on the same topic and to also ensure follow up and continued dialogue.

Workshop Organizers :

	Sumi Helal
	University of Florida, USA
	helal@cise.ufl.edu

	Hideki Sunahara
	Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
	suna@wide.ad.jp

	Katsuyuki Yamazaki
	KDDI Labs., Japan
	ymzk@kddilabs.jp