Hangzhou Hosted the 8th ICITFS Summit for Financial Services Outsourcing

From Oct 13th to Oct. 15th Hangzhou hosted International Conference on Information Technology for Financial Services (ICITFS) 2008. Building on the success of previous conferences, ICITFS 08 joins the efforts of Hangzhou Municipal Government, Zhejiang University, Insigma Hengtian and State Street Technology Zhejiang (SSTZ) in providing a platform for open discussion and knowledge sharing for technical experts from State Street, Insigma and their partners.

The conference attracted representatives, CEOs, and EVP-level senior management from State Street Corp., IBM, SUN, Broadridge, PFS, Schooner, AIG Huatai, Franklin Templeton Sealand, Fortis Haitong and other leading international financial and IT corporations and headquarters. Bob Frankston, co-creator of VisiCalc (the first computer spreadsheet program released in 1979) and co-founder of Software Arts, attended the conference and delivered a speech on The Importance of Opportunity . The Vice Mayor of the Hangzhou Government, Ms. Tong Guili gave her opening remarks for the conference.

The theme of this year was Interfaces . Interfaces are the abstract communication boundary between two entities, such as pieces of software, hardware devices, or human beings. User interfaces present the graphical, textual and auditory information as well as the control sequences of the whole process. People who want to do increasingly interesting and complex things with information technologies and interfaces are required to facilitate new ways of interaction. Sooner or later interfaces need to understand more about what people are doing with them, become self-reflective, and communicate using natural modalities such as speech and gesture.

ICITFS is an annual event held in Hangzhou, China, where professors and scholars from Zhejiang University, technical and business experts from State Street Corporation and leading international IT companies get together to host seminars, workshops and technical discussions on the latest information technologies and technical concepts, and to exchange ideas on how the latest information technologies could contribute to the world s financial industry. ICITFS was firstly held in Hangzhou in 2001 with the sponsorship of Zhejiang University and State Street Corporation, and it has been recognized as the most highlighted conference in the field of Information Technology and financial services ever since.

The host city of this conference, Hangzhou, reputed as Silicon Valley in Paradise , has developed rapidly in the fields of software development, service outsourcing and financial service outsourcing in recent years. The success of the 8th ICITFS further contributes to Hangzhou s goal of becoming the world s international financial service outsourcing center.