Paul VAN BINST is Full Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Brussels (ULB); he is the Director of "Service Télématique et Communication" (STC) grouping about fifteen researchers specializing in information and communication technologies (computer networks, telecommunication infrastructures, protocols, standards, telematic applications and services, multimedia, broadband networks, …). STC has many R&D contracts, as well as training and consultancy activities, with the largest public and private organizations.

Paul VAN BINST is also lecturing in the Faculty of Sciences and in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Politics and Economy. He created a postgraduate programme in "Telematics and Organization".

Outside the academic world, he gives a large number of lectures, seminars and conferences, and has many national and international activities, in particular in relation with the European Commission. He has been the chairman of the Steering Committee of EWOS (European Workshop for Open Systems). He is presently president of the Belgian Teleworking Association and vice-president of the Brussels Teleport, and a member of the board of many scientific and professional associations.

Telework is not yet very developed and yet we are seeing already an important paradigm shift concerning its basic concept, in relation with the evolution of mobile communication technologies.

For many, Telework used to be, or still is, more or less synonymous with home working, or working in a given place, different from the traditional workplace. The basic corresponding technology is essentially a PC, a modem, and some telephone, ISDN or other wired connection. The Internet and associated protocols have definitely pushed to the positive evolution of Telework.

However, the explosive growth of mobile technologies and the cheaper and cheaper availability of powerful and versatile consumer electronics type of equipment is changing all that.

Today, the combination of cellular digital telephony and laptop computers, "assistants" or "communicators", is widely opening the range of facilites and services available to the work force. At the same time, our society is definitely moving from the production of goods to the more immaterial information or services world.

Hence the concept sometimes called "work nouveau" or "working on the move", which soon will be the true meaning of Telework: independant of the location of the worker and of the location of those he is working with and for. Telework will be normal work in the "virtual corporation" of tomorrow.