NUI Galway's Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) is to host the 7th IEEE Peer to Peer Conference which will examine the changes P2P makes to the way we exchange information on the Internet. The conference will be launched at DERI's centre at the IDA Industrial Park, Dangan on Sunday 2 September and continues until Wednesday, 5 September, at the Meyrick Hotel, Galway.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) technology has come into the limelight recently with applications like Skype and collaboration applications like Groove. Peer-to-peer has already been used in the design of the original Internet where it has enabled global scalability and robustness against failures. The next stage in its development will see the application of semantics technologies to P2P technologies that will enable more effective inter-business communication and personal collaboration.

IEEE P2P is the flagship conference gathering the leading international experts both from academia and industry. It is the pronounced goal of the conference to promote the collaboration in research among academic institutions, government organizations, and companies. This is also reflected in this year s conference program which features tutorials and keynote talks from the world s leading academic and industrial experts.

"P2P2007 is another high-profile event hosted by DERI at NUI Galway which demonstrates the international reputation of research in Ireland," says Professor Manfred Hauswirth, Vice Director of DERI Galway and program chair and local organiser of P2P2007.

"This conference will provide an opportunity to demonstrate the state of Irish technology base to experts from around the world, and will give Irish companies access to expertise from abroad. As a helpful side-effect, such high-profile conferences allow local Irish companies and Irish subsidiaries of multi-nationals to take a 'cost-free' look at the next generation of experts in the domain."

Prof Hauswirth added that the P2P conference would attract a large number of PhD students and post doctoral level experts in ICT, who would be vetted by leading international experts both in industry and academia.

"Companies attending the conference have the opportunity to see what these highly qualified individuals have to offer. This in turn delivers a desperately needed injection of know how given the dramatically low numbers of Irish students in the ICT area."

The high profile speakers at this year's conference include; Dr Sandeep K. Singhal, Director Windows Networking, Microsoft Corporation, who will give a tutorial on the Peer-to-Peer and Collaboration Platform used in Microsoft s Windows operating system; Dr Wolfgang Kellerer, Senior Manager Future Networking Lab, NTT DoCoMo Euro-Labs, whose keynote speech will address 'The Bright Future of P2P: a Telecom Operator s Perspective'; and Prof Karl Aberer, Director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research - Mobile Information and Communication Systems, who will discuss how P2P can be used to improve search engines.

ENDS