Hedy Lamarr Lectures
State-of-the-art information and communication technologies are the backbone of today’s knowledge-based society. They can mobilize, make knowledge accessible to a broad public and connect people of all ages and across borders. The role of knowledge has changed dramatically in recent years. The abilities and skills that played a key role in the industrial age are becoming less and less important in the knowledge society. The knowledge society requires people to filter a growing flood of information, to sort and process it and then to deal with this massive volume of information properly. This involves developing critical, cognitive thinking skills and the ability to distinguish between useful and useless information.
As a responsible communications company the Telekom Austria Group therefore analyzes people’s educational and information behavior, working and personal lives and seeks to engage in a dialogue with relevant target groups and decision makers. One of the Telekom Austria Group’s current initiatives in this context is the "Hedy Lamarr Lectures” organized in cooperation with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Medienhaus Wien. International experts are invited to give public lectures about the potential social consequences of the paradigm shift brought about by information and communications technologies.
The social science lecture series is named after the Austrian actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000). Without her invention of frequency hopping mobile communications technology would be unthinkable today. Lamarr, who emigrated to the USA and opposed National Socialism, originally developed this procedure for remote radio control of torpedoes, which however, was not deployed by the U.S. military. Since the 1990's her contribution to radio technology was honored with numerous awards.
Lectures 2011
March 14 - Nico Stehr
May 30 - Saskia Sassen
Hedy Lamarr Lectures 2010
Sponsors
Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) / Commission for Comparative Media and Communications Research
Medienhaus Wien
Telekom Austria Group
Venue
ÖAW, Festsaal
Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
1010 Vienna
