Expo Shanghai Online--Innovation in Expos

Shanghai Expo Online is an opportunity to bring the communication of Expos to a whole different level and scope.
For a few years now, the BIE has seen in the Internet a powerful source for innovating and for enhancing the educational value of Expos. With the Internet we can bring Expos and the messages linked to their theme to a larger and more diverse international public. However, let me stress that we cannot underestimate the challenge of raising the internet in Expos within the Internet, which is a world where competition for information and attention is very high.
I am convinced that right approach rests on our joint ability to identify, maintain and support the correct ideal position for a virtual counterpart to a physical Expo.
Today, I am very happy to see that the necessary joint efforts that must be done within our Expo community are indeed taking place and paying back.
The background work sponsored by the BIE in the area of Virtual Expos, the determination of the Shanghai Organizers to advance this project as added value to Shanghai 2010 and the presence today of many participant countries highlights the necessary shared commitment that will allow us to turn this dream into reality.
In recent years, the BIE has stressed the need to boost and enhance the communication of Expos on the par of other major international events. However, we have also recognized that the uniqueness of Expos needs equally unique communication platforms to promote their interactive and multidimensional nature. With the Internet, I believe, we find a natural medium for developing the contents and engaging the visitors.
In this way, with an Online counterpart to the physical Expos we are gaining the coverage that International Sports events have gained through television: the Internet can be to Expos what TV is to sports events. These two very different media, TV and Internet, match the nature and the objectives of these very different events.
As an increasingly interactive medium, the Internet is very appropriate to accommodate the type of educational experience that is promoted by Expos. Online visitors will be able to choose the paths through the Expo that best fit their curiosity and interests, they will be able to return as many times they wish, they will explore the many dimensions of the theme as seen through the perspective of each international participant.
Whereas the objective of sport events is to increase coverage of the event, that of Expos is to increase participation.
Expo Online will indeed promote participation and dialogue for the duration of the 6 months of Expo Shanghai 2010.
I think that in the years to come we will see EXPO online become an indispensable complement to EXPO, especially as the BIE continues to insist on the importance of creating a global dialogue around the theme of each Expo.
To this end, the Internet is a powerful tool that will contribute to promote, next to the physical architecture, not only a virtual counterpart, but a real development, explanation and dialogue around the theme of the Expo.
Expo Online can become an instrument to be followed as an example by other future expos for promotion of the event, of the theme and of a global dialogue.
Although the technical aspects are really important, I urge all of us to leave them to the engineers and the technologists who have the expertise and the talent to make the Expo happen and focus on the content, the message and the vision of what we want this Online Expo to be in order to achieve a real global impact. In fact, this Expo can fulfill and enhance the educational value of Expos in multiple ways.
The first is to bring the "world to the world". The Expo site in the city of Shanghai brings to China a glimpse and a vision of each of your Country. The Expo Online will bring your countries beyond borders and at the finger tips of the each person with internet access on the planet, that is billions of citizens of all ages, races and walks of life.
The second way in which Expo Online can fulfill a cultural mission is by creating a permanent virtual legacy for the Expo that will enhance and complete the cultural heritage of each physical Expo. Expo Online will be accessible by everyone well after the physical Expo is closed thus providing a virtual destination for all sort of publics.
Shanghai 2010 Online will be a destination for many different publics: for the curious public looking at exploring the world, for the Expo experts that are doing research on World Expos, and even for future organizers who will look at the Online project as a benchmark to improve and innovate their own Expo.
Finally, Expo Online will encourage organizers and participants to expand the contents of the theme. For all of these reasons, Expo Shanghai Online is highly significant both for the development of world expos, as well as for the participants who will be building their online pavilions in the coming years. It is extremely important for Expo Online to offer a large and diverse number of online pavilions through which participants will with present their ideas and technologies to a global audience, will display a larger number of exhibits in the virtual space, and will contribute to promote their own official language(s) besides Chinese and English.
Expo Online is therefore a perfect occasion for Participants to promote the multiple aspects that together make up their national image—which is at the heart of the richness of Expos.
I wish to stress that the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination has done a lot of work to make Expo Online a success both at the level of the design and concept as well at the financial level, thus ensuring major funding that will help participants have an online presence during—and even after—Shanghai 2010. In the spirit of solidarity towards all participants, the organizers have also put in a place a system that will ensure the online presence also of countries with insufficient means to build a virtual pavilion. In the course of this day of work I would like to encourage us all to think of the Virtual Expo as a continuity of the Physical one, such that Shanghai 2010 will have introduced in our World Expo a new dimension that pursues the values of openness, accessibility, education and solidarity that is called for by our Convention. I look forward to a productive day ahead.