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Finland, which combines technological leadership with world-class hospitality, will host WAN’s 5th World Young Reader Conference from 7 to 10 September 2003.

The event will take place in Helsinki, which is sometimes called “Little Barcelona” based on its warm welcome and flourishing coffee shop and restaurant life.

The sessions themselves will concentrate on the challenges for newspapers of a generation that is becoming more and more accustomed to getting its news electronically and for free.

Indeed, Finland itself may have found some of the answers to this dilemma, thanks in part to its own dynamic newspapers in education and young reader projects. In a country that is a world leader in cell phone use, especially among the young, a new survey has found that newspaper readership among 12 to 20-year-olds increased over the past two years for the first time since 1982!
Conference participants will examine leading research and cases from around the world and even get the chance to try some of the strategies themselves on site.

The audience will be global as well. The previous Young Reader conference, held in South Africa in 2001, attracted delegates from 33 countries.

So, mark your calendar -- WAN, at the invitation of the Finnish Newspaper Association, will hold its 5th International Young Reader Conference in Helsinki from 7 to 10 September 2003.

For more about Helsinki and Finland:

http://www.finlandforyou.com/
http://virtual.finland.fi/
http://www.finnfacts.com/