Much has been said, and a lot of people have worried about the year 2 000's bug. Two boxes instead of four to mark the date! A technical choice, with major potential consequences, resulting from a short-term thinking, running after short-term savings. It will have cost millions to put things in order. Notwithstanding the media hype, and the fears more or less justified that it has raised, the year 2000's bug was a technical problem quite simple to solve. But the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) carries more complex challenges.

The organizers of the 2001 bugs conference would like to highlight other problems (human, social, cultural, political and economic) that are facing societies where ICTs are widespread and play a major role. What will be the bugs in the years to come in these societies that are frequently called information societies, programmmed societies or knowledge societies ? An invitation to leave the ground of too simple short-term calculation to confront a social universe which includes possibilities to identify and bring to reality as well as problems to pinpoint and solve. In short, the challenge is to think pervasive communication in all its complexity in the perspective of its long-term implications.

Convergence and diversity are two concomitant tendencies in this perspective which calls us to find and analyze in a single effort the forces pushing towards harmonization, integration, even globalization, and factors which, at the same time and place, help to maintain and develop plurality.

Different panels and workshops will be organized to allow the presentation of reseach findings and reflexions. Paper proposals (1 page) should be submitted to the Chair of the Program Committee,

Gaetan Tremblay,
GRICIS, UQAM,
CP 8888, Succ. Centre-Ville,
Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada,
Tel 1-514-9878591,
Fax 1-514-9874164,
email: tremblay.gaetan@uqam.ca
before May 1, 2000.