On November 20-21, 2007 in Warsaw took place the conference Internet CEE – the first international conference on the Internet industry in Central and Eastern Europe. We had the pleasure to have as guests participants from 20 countries, mainly from the CEE region but also from the USA and Great Britain. The event was a great opportunity both to compare and learn more about particular markets and to enter into new business relations.

The conference’s program consisted of four thematic components and discussion panels. The event was organized in the Fabryka Trzciny art center. Its premises may be an untypical place for a business conference, but these modern, nonstandard conditions contributed to creating less formal atmosphere conducive to business talks and discussions in small groups.

We asked the participants what they think about the conference. Here are some of their comments.

Felix Bodmann, AOL (Great Britain)
AOL is launching a business in Poland soon, that’s why AOL is attending the Internet CEE conference. I am enjoying my time here. And I will be celebrating my birthday tonight with more than 200 people, that’s not bad!

Tomáš Řehák, OMD Digital (Czech Republic)
I enjoyed the presentation prepared by Chris Modzelewski. I think also the place is OK, I think the guests like it. It’s a bit exotic and industrial, untypical and that’s good!

Peter Darvas, Ipsos Szonda (Hungary)
Technically speaking – the conference is OK and the timing is kept. This is important. I am enjoying my time here, especially after my presentation :). What I liked most was Chris Modzelewski’s presentation on the Internet in CEE. I think I would come next year if you organize such an event. As for the things to change – I am of the opinion that sometimes there was too much self-presentation. More comparative and general speeches would be more useful for everybody.

Tatyana Tsvetkova, Softkey (Russia)
The conference’s organization was great. We had a good time here. I think not enough attention was paid to the eastern part of Europe. In fact Ukraine itself is a very big market, not to mention Russia, which is just enormous and diversified. I think there should be more presentations devoted to the East in the future.

Matěj Novák, Ataxo (Czech Republic)
The conference was very interesting. I did not expect a lot, and I was really surprised by the value of information I got, great people I have met and very good organization – beginning with the amazing place and ending with great foods & drinks... To sum up, perfect. I hope I'll get a chance to visit next year again.

120 Internet users participated in the event online. They could observe selected fragments of the conference thanks to an online transmission.

Journalist and bloggers who took part in the meeting also published their account of the conference. Some of them are available at the following addresses:

• http://www.internetstandard.pl/news/132135.html
• http://internetcee.blogit.idg.pl
• http://jaskowska.blogspot.com/
• http://www.piotr.friedberg.pl
• http://claudiu.gamulescu.ro/20.11.2007.internet-cee-luni.html
• http://claudiu.gamulescu.ro/20.11.2007.internet-cee-marti.html
• http://claudiu.gamulescu.ro/22.11.2007.internet-cee-concluzie.html
• http://www.webmyc.com/blog/2007/11/20/internet-cee-1st-day/
• http://www.maddy.ro/20.11.2007.polonia-iii-internet-cee-ziua-1.html
• http://blog.meta.ua/users/@419910/posts/@36551/
• http://www.sempoglobalsearchblog.com/article:internet-cee

If you attended the conference and would like to share your opinions and comments with us, please write to It depends solely on you whether next year the CEE Internet industry meeting will be organized again.

Below you can find a video with the selected fragments of speeches and discussion panels from the conference "Internet CEE". The recording's total duration time is 23:50 minutes.

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