The global market has given birth to new trends in how non-profits conduct business. One of these trends is increasing collaboration to ensure that everything is smooth sailing for the organization. The solution? Simple. Web conferencing.

Web Conferencing for a Global Future
Organizations these days are transforming themselves into “networking organizations” in order to increase their flexibility and reduce operational costs. And the only way for them to become truly “networked” is through the use of software applications, such as web conferencing. As a service, web conferencing offers organizations a chance to address their need of interacting with a wide community of partners and donors. Web conferencing also allows them to adopt more dynamic trading and collaborative working practices which could only result in reduced costs and increased efficiency.

In order to achieve seamless interaction across organizational boundaries which results in the realization of networked organizations, enterprise systems and applications need to be interoperable. Web conferencing can help foster flexibility in any enterprise. Insufficient interoperability is a major impediment to success. It could hinder the adoption of new business models that could enhance productivity and competitiveness, which is among the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy to modernize European economy and to build knowledge based economy in Europe.

What is ATHENA?

ATHENA stands for Advanced Technologies for interoperability of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications. Sponsored by the European Commission, Athena is an Integrated Project in support of the Strategic Objective set out in the IST 2003-2004 Work Programme of FP6. The objective is to create “networked businesses and government” which builds upon an ambitious vision statement of Athena’s: “By 2010, enterprises will be able to seamlessly interoperate with others.”

Armed with the appropriate web conferencing technology and the necessary objective to carry its vision through, Athena aims to make a major contribution to interoperability in the business. Additionally, it hopes to identify and meet a set of inter-related business, scientific & technical, and strategic objectives so as to foster better communication and collaboration capabilities between operatives.

The Purpose of the Athena Project

The Athena program of work encompasses every aspect of interoperability. Thus, its influence spans the whole spectrum, including technology components, web conferencing applications and services, research and development, demonstration and testing, and training and evaluation of technologies for societal impact.

Athena allows a close working synergy between Research and Development and Community Building. This helps ensure that solutions to multi-disciplinary research challenges which project workers come up with are relevant to the industry which could then result in a broader uptake by you - the end user.