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With five billion more people set to join the virtual world, digital connectivity is set to expand further and very rapidly. With this, it will usher gains in productivity, health, education, quality of life, and economic productivity, among others. In this context, organisations today must be agile and adaptive to be able to easily connect, transfer and share knowledge, deal with big data sets and, finally, find innovative ways to engage with their communities to achieve desirable and sustainable socio-economic outcomes. 

While addressing the International Conference on Digital Libraries (ICDL) 2016, Dr. Ajay Mathur, Director-General TERI underscored the importance of national approaches to managing knowledge, especially through the adoption of new digital technologies in this digital era. 

He said: âÂÂThe core objective of the International Conference on Digital Libraries (ICDL) 2016 conference is to discuss perspectives on how planning for smart cities and other important aspects of our emerging urban lives must factor in the increasingly crucial role played by sophisticated and appropriate ICT tools and software services to intelligently manage, analyse and predict,  how our smart future could look like. This will ensure how countries and their institutions plan and build entirely new ecosystems in areas such as public security, air quality and pollution, public health environmental sustainability, socioeconomic innovation, participatory governance, better public services, planning and collaborative decision-making.âÂÂ

Ms Donna Scheeder, IFLA President & Deputy Chief Information Officer, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, USA, said, âÂÂIt is important for an institution to lead the change technology than lead by external sources to gain business advantage. There is a need to bridge the digital knowledge gap across the globe. This can also help in achieving the goal of eradicating poverty.âÂÂ

This year the conference is being attended by dignitaries from India and abroad. A total of 120 speakers from 22 countries will be participating in more than 30 sessions during the summit. The conference will witness a vibrant mix of academic papers, practitioner presentations, seminars, keynotes, discussions, workshops, and exhibitions by national and international conference delegates on a range of themes and subjects like innovation and knowledge management, social media and analytics, Big Data, analytics and artificial intelligence, new digital technologies like cloud computing and the Internet of Things, among others.

The journey of ICDL began in 2004 with financial and intellectual support from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The first conference was inaugurated by late HonâÂÂble Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the then President of India. Seeing overwhelming responses from all corners â government, librarians, and publishers – ICDL was repeated in 2006, 2010 and 2013.

The four-day conference is a part of TERIâÂÂs on-going efforts to create a better world for future generations through the adoption of new digital technologies. ICDL 2016 will not only create a roadmap for a smart future, but it will also try to tell us how to prepare ourselves for new challenges and opportunities in this transformative digital age.

The three strategic objectives of the conference, include predicting the future, preparing for the future and, finally, taking requisite actions to apply this knowledge to create, what is being called the âÂÂSmart FutureâÂÂ.  “