UNESCO will commence the first of seven conferences tomorrow, being held in the lead-up to the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, adopted on November 16, 1972, and in celebration of the United Nations Year of Cultural Heritage. Scheduled for the cities of Alexandria, Beijing, Dakar, Mexico City, Paris, Strasbourg and Tours, the conferences will address the theme, ‘World Heritage in the Digital Age’. UNESCO estimates that hundreds of participants from a broad range of cultural and professional backgrounds will join in discussing how information and communications technology can be best harnessed to manage heritage sites. Some 200 papers from 60 countries are expected to be presented, and participants will be able to communicate with each other via the internet. The inaugural conference, on the topic ‘Elected Representatives and World Heritage: Challenges of Decentralisation’, will be opened tomorrow in Paris by UNESCO Director General Koïchiro Matsuura and UNESCO Senate President Christian Poncelet. Meanwhile, two other conferences will take place concurrently in Africa and Asia: ‘Teaching World Heritage in Africa’, October 15-17, in the Senegalese city of Dakar, which is expected to be attended by some 30 African university professors; and ‘Architecture and World Heritage’ in Beijing, October 15-17 for the Asia-Pacific region. Other conferences will include: ‘Heritage Management and Mapping: Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Multimedia’ in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, and ‘The Great World Heritage Rivers: From Crisis to Risk Management Culture’, in the French city of Tours. Full details are available online at: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/ev.php?URL_ID=1335&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC