Abu Dhabi, Sept. 24, 2007 (WAM) -- Abu Dhabi Crown prince and Deputy supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, last night attended a lecture on the Future of Information Technology delivered by Chris D. Moyer - EDS Fellow.

The lecture, which was held at the Crown Prince's Court as part of a series of intellectual activities being organised annually at the court during the holy month of Ramadan, was attended by intellectuals, Muslim scholars, as well as political, scientific and business personalities. The programme is aimed at providing a platform for dialogue, interaction and sharing of views on a number of current and important issues.

Also present were the Crown Prince of Umm Al Qaiwain, Sheikh Saud bin Rashid Al Mualla, Interior Minister, Lt. General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a number of sheikhs, ministers, senior officials and directors of government institutions and organisations, as well as a large number of female social personalities.

Delivering the lecture under the theme: "Information Technology in 2012 and beyond", Moyer said to predict the future of Information Technology (IT) there is the need for us to delve into the past, adding that IT was a relatively young industry that had a series of waves of innovation and consumption of this innovation.

"The first wave was the introduction of electronic computers, mainframes where we moved computing from banks of people in rooms to electronic means, there are many predictions that there would only be this wave of innovation back then," he said, adding that the next wave was moving computers out of the domain of the IT department and into every other department and allowed various professionals to have their own applications that suit that professions.

He pointed out that this wave triggered the integration of computers to other devices. "We are in the middle of the next wave triggered by connectivity and widely available home connectivity. We use the WWW and internet browser to reach millions of people. We have put enterprise application into our largest organisations and moved to much more real time processing," he explained.

He said the next wave - having IT everywhere. Smarter things, billions of more connections, context sensitive and as "embedded as we want".

"It is already starting with location sensitive advertising to mobile devices, customised advertising to your online activities," he said, adding that the future has us much more reliant on technology in all walks of life, professional and personal.