Several high-ranking politicians including EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden Carl Bildt, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom William Hague will be attending the International Cyber Space Conference, which will be held in Budapest.

The conference will take place on October 4-5, 2012, and its motto will be „With Confidence and Security for Freedom and Progress”.

Its aim is to promote the network and content development of cyber space as well as the free and safe use of cyber space and the exploration of the opportunities for the development required for this. The conference is also aimed at facilitating the close cooperation between the public and the private sectors and the coordination between the international and the regional organizations.

The topics discussed at the London conference last November will be carried on in Budapest, and there will be three plenary sessions, five panel discussions, eight workshop debates, a youth forum and an innovation exhibition held under the aegis of the conference. Moreover, several programs will be broadcasted live on the official home page of the event at www.cyberbudapest2012.hu.

Foreign Minister János Martonyi will be hosting the event, and Prime Minister Orbán will give the opening speech. British Foreign Secretary William Hague, as the host of the previous cyber space conference, and South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister King Sun Han, as the host of the next cyber space conference, will give their speeches as well. The organization of the conference has been coordinated by Ministerial Commissioner Péter Sztáray, who also serves as Deputy State Secretary for Security Policy Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other high-profile guests including Minister for Administrative and Digital Affairs of Poland Michal Boni, Minister for Housing and Comminications of Finland Krista Kiuru, and Minister for Communications of Kenya Samuel will also be present on the event as well as CEOs of multinational companies, such as BT, Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, Google, Graphisoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Symantec, UPC and Vodafone.

A youth forum - for the age group between 17 and 25 years - will be held simultaneously, creating an opportunity for public dialogue. The participants will be able to share their views about the opportunities and risks related to cyber space, about how the World Wide Web could contribute to the online creation of jobs, how social networks can promote human rights and democratization, and what users can do to enhance their own online security.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)