*APEC EINet: http://depts.washington.edu/einet/*
  
Greetings, 
APEC EINet is pleased to invite you to a special videoconference on a critical and timely topic: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Partnerships and Continuity Planning for Critical Systems. This videoconference is a follow-up to our first "virtual symposium", which was conducted in January 2006 with great success (participating economies were Australia, Canada, China, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, USA, and Viet Nam). You can view a five-minute videoclip of our previous virtual symposium at: http://depts.washington.edu/einet/symposium.html. Our upcoming videoconference will be held in late May 2008. It will take place during the evening hours of 29 May in the Americas and in the morning hours of 30 May in Asia, for approximately 3.5 hours. Our objective is to describe how private and public sectors in the APEC region can cooperate and work effectively to prepare for and respond to an influenza pandemic. We will invite representatives from the private and public sectors and aim for a joint presentation from each economy. We will provide a "menu" of presentation topics and allow participating economies to select those they wish to address. 
Through this videoconference, we hope to promote regional information sharing and collaboration to enhance pandemic preparedness. In order to improve preparedness regionally, it is vital to understand how each economy in the region is undertaking this task. In this process, EINet will: 
1.      Bring together economies in a dynamic, real-time discussion on preparedness through the collaboration of the health and the business/trade sectors, with a focus on critical systems continuity.

2.      Share specific examples of current practices---e.g. scenario exercises, communication drills and policy evaluation.

3.      Use innovative technologies (e.g. Access Grid) for real-time, virtual interchange, enhancing their utility for future collaboration and response in the event of a pandemic.  
Videoconferencing offers an alternative to in-person conferencing. It cuts down on the time and cost of traditional conferences requiring long-distance travel. Simultaneous communication with multiple sites is possible, with numerous visualization options. Real-time web-based information exchange is also possible, and, during an actual pandemic, the virtual medium would be a safe way to communicate when international travel is limited or prohibited. 
The virtual symposium requires advanced Internet networking capabilities. We are prepared to provide technical consultation, and assist economies lacking the necessary technology by supporting their travel to economies that have advanced networks, as we did for the first videoconference. For those economies interested, we ask that you first respond to this email by 31 January 2008, requesting participation. We will follow up with a confirmation and request that your team submit a brief presentation proposal. We would like presentations for the videoconference to be in the form of a brief PowerPoint presentation, which will be followed by a moderated question and answer session. 
Thank you for your interest and we hope your economy will be represented at this important and exciting event. If your economy would like to participate, please respond to apecein@u.washington.edu. 
Sincerely, 
Ann Marie Kimball

Director, APEC Emerging Infections Network (EINet) 
Louis Fox

Associate Vice President, Learning & Scholarly Technologies, University of Washington 
Jacqueline Brown

Assistant Vice President, Information Technology Partnerships, University of Washington