Attendees included people from the Scandinavian countries, China, Japan, Canada, Africa, US, India, Europe, and the Middle East. Executives included representatives from companies such as the BBC, Sony, Yahoo, NHK, Nickelodeon, CCTV, CBC, UNICEF, INTEL /Greece, Discovery, ECFA, Fox kids, NATPI/ UK, IETV, KINDERKANAL, ASTRA-SES, KAHooTZ, ABC/ Australia, MCI, UNESCO, Markle foundation, as well as teachers, educators and researchers from universities around the world. A special contingent of 60 kids from all around world also attended the Summit. During those days, the kids interviewed attendees, filmed, and edited a "Making Of" piece on the Summit from their perspective.

Athena Rikakis, President of the European children's TV center and the Chair of the Summit had a promising vision. "My goal was to establish a global market for professional people to educate each other - producers, researchers, kids, artists, tech people, and teachers." Her biggest challenge was to bring professionals from 5 continents together to the remote location of Greece to talk about something so modern as broadband new media, interactive television, and important issues that will influence children's enjoyment and use of it.

One of the Summit's goals, which brought [itvt] all the way from the US to Greece, was to discover more about the emerging needs of children for new content and applications. What we found for the most part, however, was that the Summit focused on the social aspects of Media and New Media, and somewhat on the applications, in general. For example, many of the sessions looked at how kids can create their own content using new technologies and the power of the Internet as an educational tool. ITV, widely regarded as one of New Media's most important tools, was poorly represented, unfortunately. One good example, though, was Japanese broadcaster, NHK's, enhanced TV presentation. NHK is currently exploring enhanced TV programming in school curricula by broadcasting 50 hours a week of it to Japanese schools. Later, when [itvt] informally polled Summit participants on ITV, the common response was that ITV is no more than another vehicle to deliver content for Kids. In fact, we needed a magnifying glass to find ITV content at this event! Wasn't it Marie Antoinette, though, who said, "If there is no bread let them eat cake"? We took her advice and went looking for ITV-like cake hoping we'd find something that foreshadowed future developments.

One of the most exciting things we found was "KAHooTZ" (www.kahootz.com). KAHooTZ is an online club for kids that allows kids to create their own pictures, animation and music, chat, and share their creations with other KAHooTZ members. While this is not ITV yet, we felt it showed excellent development and encouraged much participation in the way that ITV will permit one day. Here, content is exchanged via the Internet, and is only accessible to KAHooTZ members who have a previously installed the KAHooTZ CD ROM. Simply walking by the KAHooTZ booth made it clear that kids love to interact and be creative! Look for this company to import this to ITV platforms one day. Version 2 is on its way.

Another impressive demo was at the BBC's (www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/) presentation during New Technologies Day. The presentation showed kids' openness and willingness to use interactive tools to become more active media-oriented creators of their own content. This demonstration made us believe that the ITV platform can, should, and will be used in this way. Once digital video recorders, for example, appear in everyone's home and applications are written for them, we'll see a change in the medium - dare we say a paradigm shift? The BBC's project definitely foretells this future. Here, they presented development tools for kids working better with keyboards and monitors that allow pre-school kids to access and create content easier. An indication of BBC's progressive interactive efforts is their Web-based interactive "Score Card". This tool enables kids to improve their studies by monitoring their progress. Each time a student visits an activity, factsheet or work page or completes the work, it is recorded on their Score Card. The output from the Score Card is not only for kids to track their progress, but it also allows teachers to customize the lesson based on the progress of the student. Teachers have the ability to interact with students ether on a "class mode" or a single "student mode". This type of application would be perfect for children's ITV programming or even real distance education.

Last but not least, was the first public presentation of the J.P. Morgan Kids Digital Dance and Sound workshop (music.columbia.edu/kids/). This project featured a collaborative project of Ballet Frankfurt, Lego, mak.frankfurt, Paul Kaiser, and the Computer Music Center of Columbia University. In this workshop children use the latest digital technologies, such as robots and computers, to analyze sounds of their environments and express themselves through their movements. It was a live interactive event that brought out enjoyment and satisfaction from the kids. While it was a proprietary interactive media platform, it may be the most successful interactive tool we were exposed to during the Summit.

Overall, attendees may have enriched their general knowledge about Media for kids, but left without new knowledge of ITV.

The event in Greece could and should have had more ITV industry participants. It will be hard to create a bridge between these development communities if those who possess the knowledge, new developments, vision of New Media globalization over interactive television platforms are not there to enrich and educate those who understand how to produce broadband applications now. We recommend you attend the 2003 Summit next time in Brazil where it will be held in fabulous Rio De Janeiro. "Bemvendio a la cidade mais preciosa"

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