Costa Rican leader keynoting Florida IT forum

Costa Rican leader keynoting Florida IT forum Former Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres, now the special representative of the United Nations Secretary General to the U.N.’s Information and Communication Technologies Task Force, will be the keynote speaker at ITFlorida’s annual Awards Gala and Tech Forum, scheduled for December 7-8 at the Walt Disney World Contemporary Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
   Figueres was president of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, and made information technology an integral part of the country’s economic development strategy and successfully attracted high-tech companies and manufacturing to Costa Rica. As president, he signed the Structural Adjustment Program with the International Monetary Fund, privatized a number of key state-owned companies and ended monopolies of the public banking system. President Figueres expanded commercial relations with the United States and made Costa Rica the first Central American State linked with the North America Free Trade Agreement. Before he was president, he had served as Minister of Foreign Trade and as Minister of Agriculture.
   Information on the conference is available at www.itflorida.com .