civil society & ICT

21.12.2004 A panel of scholars from universities in the United States has named the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) among the top ten most enduring institutions in the world. ITU has been recognised for its “effective information flow” despite the changing political and economic conditions and technologies.

21.12.2004 The Lumbini Community Multimedia Centre, Nepal, organised a photo competition to popularise the use of digital technologies in preserving world heritage. Forty-six participants used a digital camera to take pictures of the Lumbini cultural heritage site, where Lord Buddha was born over 2,500 years ago. These will be used to create a portal about the site.

17.12.2004 The Millennium Campaign global website is inviting the planet's 6 billion people to use their voice to speak up and demand their governments to live up to their commitments.

14.12.2004 With tools for publishing blogs, sharing documents and participating in discussions with other community members, the new and improved website of Digital Divide Network provides an opportunity to build online communities. More than 3000 people from over 80 countries are participating in this portal to work together to bridge the digital divide.

10.12.2004 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has proposed relaxed licensing conditions by recommending the government to allow news and current affairs on community radio stations.

07.12.2004 Sangonet will hold its first national Civil Society ICT conference on 3-5th March 2005. The conference will gather South African Civil Society Organisations to discuss and debate ICT issues. Given the ever-increasing interest in and importance of ICT issues to the CSO sector, the conference will focus specifically on the ICT challenges facing the CSO sector, highlighting and promoting practical benefits, opportunities and lessons learned to date.

07.12.2004 Sangonet will hold its first national Civil Society ICT conference on 3-5th March 2005. The conference will gather South African Civil Society Organisations to discuss and debate ICT issues. Given the ever-increasing interest in and importance of ICT issues to the CSO sector, the conference will focus specifically on the ICT challenges facing the CSO sector, highlighting and promoting practical benefits, opportunities and lessons learned to date.

07.12.2004 The IICD telecentre pilot project started in Mali in 2002. According to the analysis, while local expertise has done away with technological problems, the international evaluators are working on a financial strategy to reduce dependence on heavy donor funding.

07.12.2004 The first version of OpenOffice.org in Swahili, the language of at least 70 million Africans, has been released. Developers said they overcame several translation and infrastructure difficulties to come up with Jambo OpenOffice.org 1.1.3.

07.12.2004 The South African communications minister has asked all stakeholders to use ICTs to address the needs of people with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups so that they are not left out of the information society. He encouraged the ICT industry to design services that are affordable and accessible.

06.12.2004 A Unesco-supported three-day conference in Marrakech has concluded that freedom of expression and press freedom are vital to creating a knowledge society under the WSIS framework. The conference was attended by more than 270 representatives of international and regional media groups, NGOs and academic institutions.

03.12.2004 This paper focuses on scalability, sustainability and collaboration aspects in building infokiosk or knowledge center, summarising viewpoints from an e-discussions, Video Conference and the Task Force Reports emerged out of the National Policy Makers’ Workshop held in July 2004 in New Delhi. This Workshop envisaged the launch of Mission 2007, a nation-wide movement facilitating the setting up of knowledge centers/ info kiosks in each of India’s 600,000 villages by the year 2007.

02.12.2004 Remote sensing satellites in India have helped map the breeding areas of a malaria-carrying mosquito that could not be detected during ground surveys. Such use of space technology for development is part of a growing industry made possible by the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore.

02.12.2004 Unesco, in cooperation with the government of Kenya and UNDP, has launched the Communication and Information Policy Framework for Kenya. The five-year project aims to strengthen the use of ICTs in Kenyan society and promote its use to build a transparent and accountable public sector in the country.

01.12.2004 Arid Lands Information Network - Eastern Africa (ALIN-EA) has completed its one-year pilot phase of the Open Knowledge Network East Africa project. Despite facilitating the exchange of indigenous knowledge among the local communities in this region, the network has faced technology related challenges during this period.

01.12.2004 Students of Wellington's Brooklyn School will now use mobile learning technologies such as hand-held personal computers fitted with a touch-sensitive screen and a stylus instead of a keyboard to improve their literacy and numeracy. This is part of the Digital Opportunities projects, which are joint initiatives between schools and businesses and the government of New Zealand.

01.12.2004 As the first meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) concludes recently, stakeholders have set out the issues required to formulate the agenda to resolve the internet governance debate. The Group is aiming to develop a common understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders in internet governance.

01.12.2004 The Development Gateway has announced the call for nominations for its second round of award for projects using ICTs to improve people’s lives in developing countries. Launched by the World Bank, Development Gateway operates a global web portal on development information.