Announcing TELECENTRES:
A Civil Society Working Group on Community Technology
for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Open to the public; Discussions begin September 15
In November, 2005, thousands of representatives from governments, civil
society and the private sector will go to Tunisia for the second phase
of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a United Nations
event to identify strategies to bridge the digital divide and utilize
information and communications technologies (ICTs) for global
development. The civil society delegation, which includes
representatives from NGOs, academia and other groups, is working to
offer input to government leaders during the WSIS process, developing
recommendations on a variety of issues, including human rights, privacy,
health, education and copyright.
As part of civil society's contribution to WSIS, we are forming a new
working group on telecentres and other public technology initiatives,
including community technology centers, telecottages, public computing
centers at schools and libraries, community wireless networks, and other
initiatives that seek to offer Internet access, ICT training and related
community services to the public. Participation in the working group
is free and open to the public.
Once online discussions commence, the group will brainstorm to identify
specific projects that could serve the WSIS process, such as the following:
- Informing policymakers of successful strategies to utilize telecenters
as a tool in reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals;
- Identifying opportunities for cross-sector, public-private
partnerships for promoting sustainable telecenters;
- Organizing an international thematic conference on telecenters and
other public computing venues;
- Establishing an international network of telecenters and telecenter
associations at the local, national and regional level in order to forge
greater connections between them;
- Collecting and disseminating case studies that demonstrate the rich
diversity of telecenters, including programs run by libraries and
community networks, and how they impact various aspects of global
development (education, health, the environment, civic participation,
etc.);
- Sharing of best practices and tools, translated for cultural and
linguistic appropriateness.
Other issues may be identified as well. As discussion proceeds,
participants will be encouraged to volunteer and coordinate various
aspects of the working group, from organizing events, writing position
papers and translating the group's official documents.
As this will be an international discussion, the working group will
allow posts in English, French and Spanish; participants will be
encouraged to utilize free translation tools such as Altavista Babelfish
to help make the daily discussion as accessible as possible.
Subscribing to TELECENTRES
There are two options to join the group:
Option 1: Go to
http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres and fill
out the subscription form;
Option 2: Send an email to telecentres-request@wsis-cs.org with this
word in the subject line: subscribe
After submitting your subscription request, you'll receive a
confirmation request from the list server. Please follow the directions
in this email; you'll then be confirmed as a member of the list.
Reminder: Inaugural Discussions Begin September 15
Since this is a new list, we would like to give incoming members a
chance to participate from the beginning. To accomodate this,
discussions on the list will not open until September 15; at that point,
I will post an announcement welcoming members to the list, encouraging
them to post personal introductions. Then, we will proceed with the
discussion.
For more information, please contact Andy Carvin at the address below.
For more on WSIS, please visit http://www.wsis.org.
--
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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org
http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/
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