MINDS International, a global network of leading news agencies collaborating in development of digital media, will hold its spring international conference in Moscow on March 15-16, 2012, and will be supported by Russia’s leading news and information agency RIA Novosti.
The MINDS International board of directors in Warsaw decided Russia’s capital city Moscow should for the first time host the next biannual members’ meeting.
 
“The very fact that this conference of the world’s leading information agencies is to be held in Russia is an important and highly significant step not only for RIA Novosti but for Russian media as a whole” RIA Novosti Editor-in-Chief Svetlana Mironyuk said. “It will above all enable participants to pool experience with information industry leaders and also to highlight issues particular to the Russian market.”
 
“We are glad that the next MINDS conference will be hosted by RIA Novosti in Moscow, as this will give all the members of our association the chance to gain a deeper insight into this sizeable, significant media market. Participants will also have the opportunity to visit RIA Novosti’s state-of-the-art newsroom,” MINDS International Managing Director Wolfgang Nedomansky said. RIA Novosti’s role as a partner in MINDS International helps the association promote international news industry best practice in Russia, he added.
 
RIA Novosti has been a MINDS International partner since 2008, representing Russia in this global network of international news agencies.
 
The MINDS International conference brings together global leaders on the information market. It offers a venue for media experts from all over the world, including top-managers, development strategy and marketing specialists and developers, to come together and pool their experience. The conference has proved popular for offering a platform for people to discuss new ideas, strategies and services for future media markets.       
 
MINDS International was established in 2007 by eleven leading news agencies from Europe and North America on the basis of project MINDS – Mobile Information and News Data Services – that had been funded by the EU since 2004. Alongside RIA Novosti, MINDS currently incorporates leading news agencies from 22 countries, among them industry leaders such as Agence France-Presse (France), Agencia EFE (Spain), Associated Press (United States), dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Germany) and Kyodo News (Japan).
 
Members benefit from access to innovative products developed by other members and third party suppliers that they are encouraged to draw on when developing mobile and multimedia services.
 
Russian News & Information Agency RIA Novosti (www.en.rian.ru)
 
RIA Novosti is a leading Russian media company with a rich 70-year history. Today, the RIA Novosti media holding includes the eponymous multimedia Russian Information Agency, the Russian Agency of Legal and Judicial Information, the R-Sport news agency, the Moscow News Publishing House, which publishes newspapers in Russian and English, a press center, as well as more than 70 Internet resources in 14 languages. RIA Novosti websites are visited by 17 million unique users per month.