Eighth Annual Conference and General Meeting, Helsinki, Finland, 19 – 23 August 2009

The 8th Annual Conference of Asia-Europe Foundation's University Alumni Network (ASEFUAN) will take place in Helsinki between 19. - 23. August 2009. The main theme of the conference is: "Rethinking Asia-Europe Communications: Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media".

Social media are primarily digital tools for sharing and discussing information. While the notion of social media refers to certain communication technologies, their applications have far-reaching consequences for our communications architecture on the whole. Enabling greater participation and decentralization, social media challenges conventional structures of Asia-Europe interaction. Internet forums, social blogs, wikigroups, facebook, vlogs, youtube, IMs, VOIPs, MySpace, Jaiku, Twitter - applications of social media are utilized and used in virtually every field in today's society.

This conference by ASEFUAN will explore state-of-the-art social media in Asia and Europe and emerging trends of social media usage amongst young generations in Asia and Europe. The key question is: How is social media providing tools for deeper interregional ties between Asia and Europe? The event enables participants to build networks and share experiences with leading Finnish and international scholars, innovators and business leaders.

Further information is available at the Conference wiki pages at https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/asefuan/AGM.