Last fall I live-blogged from the Beyond GDP conference in Brussels, where we looked at how the world could move forward on new ways of measuring progress that included indicators of environmental sustainability and social well-being. Here's information about a follow-up conference that seeks to use Information and Communications technology (ICT) to:

... fully contribute [to] achieving sustainable development, prosperity, and economic growth. Therefore, ICT applications and services needed to support new social, environmental and economic objectives related to the envisioned disruptive paradigm have to be analyzed. More precisely the network and service infrastructures, enabling such ICT applications and services, have to be identified.

The PARADISO project will investigate the role that ICT can play in the hypothesis of new global societal developments, and will derive the strategic research areas that can usefully be explored in the short term in order that suited solutions can be made available in the future.

You need to check out The Paradiso Project, which is developing a Beyond GDP index they hope will become the global standard. Here's an invitation to their upcoming conference in January:

Dear all,

Industrialized, emerging and developing countries will need to agree, sooner or later, on an alternative way forward, aiming at a true sustainable development, a more sustainable economic growth, more equally shared resources. ICT will play a central role in this future, not only because ICT have become in just two decades a key driver of the development of all countries worldwide, but also because ICT can efficiently contribute to the achievement of new economic, social and environmental objectives.

In this context, an international conference entitled “ICT for a global sustainable future” is organised on next January 22-23 in Brussels under the aegis of the European Commission and with the support of many international organisations. The conference will be opened on January 22 at 10:00 by Ms Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, and other key personalities.The event will give the opportunity to participants to thoroughly discuss what is at stake and which research areas in ICT have to be explored so that appropriate infrastructures, applications and services can be made available and durably contribute to the well-being of all citizens of the world, measured through a new index “Beyond GDP”.

Over 400 individuals and organisations from all regions of the world, active or interested in the areas of ICT and of societal developments are expected to attend.We have the pleasure to invite you to register for this conference, organized with the support of the PARADISO FP7 project.Please visit the http://www.paradiso-fp7.eu web site to get detailed information on event background, objectives and programme, and register (registration is free of charge but pre-registration is compulsory due to security rules related to events held in European Commission’s buildings).

A draft version of the “PARADISO reference document” that will be used as a starting point for the conference is also available online for public consultation.Do not hesitate to contact us at info@paradiso-fp7.eu for any further information you may need or questions you may have.

Best regards.

Roger Torrenti
Coordinator of the PARADISO FP7 project
URL: http://www.paradiso-fp7.eu
Tel: +33 (0) 493 958 530
Fax: +33 (0) 493 958 477