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International Platform to showcase ICT applications at WSIS
27 October 2003
"ICT for Development Platform" heading for success
News release
BERN: The "ICT for Development Platform" is heading for a major success. Two hundred organisations and businesses from 80 countries have already announced their intention to participate in the largest summit event at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva. Covering an area of 16,000m2, the Platform, which runs from December 9 to 13, will show how information and communication technologies from simple transistor radios to high-tech computer systems can be used innovatively to reduce poverty and promote development. The Platform, which is open to the public, consists of an exhibition and a conference. It is jointly organised by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC, and the Global Knowledge Partnership, GKP.
For five days in December, Hall 4 at Palexpo Geneva will be transformed into the largest multicultural information and communication village in the world. Governments, companies and national and international organisations from 80 countries will gather there for the biggest event ever held on the subject of information and communication technologies (ICT) for development. Entitled "Connecting people for a better life" it will present a broad range of practically oriented projects, products and services from open-source software, to community radio, e-learning, agricultural information systems and Internet-supported networking. Visitors will find the most up-to-date information and the latest offers on almost every conceivable topic. In conjunction with the exhibition, the ICT4D Forum will offer a top-class conference programme.
A market place for ideas
"We want to create a common platform for the various players who are interested in the development dimension of ICT," says SDC Director-General Walter Fust. "It is intended to act as a market place for ideas to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience and at the same time serve as a catalyst for new and innovative partnerships and projects." The ICT for Development Platform is conceived as a complement to and enrichment of the political segment of the World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS. It is located in the immediate vicinity of the main event and in contrast to the summit, is open to the general public.
The concept appears to be popular. The Platform exhibition area and the available conference rooms are practically booked out. "We have been simply flooded by registration requests and cannot satisfy all the demands," says Otto Frei, who is in charge of the organisation of the Platform. At the moment only a few stands are still available.
Gratifying private sector interest
All told, the various sectors of society governments, international organisations, companies and civil society are evenly represented. "Its particularly gratifying to see the great interest of the private sector," says Rinalia Abdul Rahim, the Executive Director of the GKP. "It makes up around one-quarter of the exhibitors." Among the exhibitors are such high-tech heavyweights as Nokia Hewlett-Packard, NTT DoCoMo, Cisco, Swisscom, Toshiba, Sharp, Linux Professional Institute and Panasonic.
High-ranking international organisations are also well represented. They include the ITU, FAO, OECD, European Commission for Development, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, UN Economic Commission for Africa, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNESCO and the WTO. The same applies to NGOs and scientific institutions. In addition to the special guest countries of Bolivia, Finland, Mali and Malaysia, many other countries have pavilions at the Platform. Among them are Canada, Denmark and Japan. A special attraction is CERN, which will introduce the next-generation Internet on the Platform.
ICT4D Forum: numerous highpoints
The ICT4D Forum programme also has a wealth of highlights. Around 40 panel discussions, workshops and special events are planned. Government leaders, ministers, captains of industry, ICT practitioners and representatives of NGOs will engage in lively debate about trends, prospects and strategies in the area of ICT for development. For example topics will focus on the role of the media in societal reconstruction after armed conflicts, with the pros and cons of open-source software from the point of view of development and with the potential of ICT in education. Another highlight is the annual symposium of the World Bank programme InfoDev. The symposium is organised by seco and the World Bank. Global Knowledge Partnership Day is another highlight and will include discussion of the role of modern multi-stakeholder networks in development cooperation work.
Film presentations will round off the programme of the ICT4D Forum. Each day, several documentaries will be shown which deal with interesting and unusual approaches to the subject of ICT for development.
An up-to-date list of exhibitors and conference programme are available at www.ict-4d.org
Media contact and information:
Daniele Waldburger
Tel. +41(0)79 248 7267, Fax +41(0)1 291 1262, E-mail
dw@waldburger-consulting.ch
Websites: www.ict-4d.org; www.wsis-online.net/ict4d; www.deza.admin.ch; www.gkp.org
From: ICT for Development Platform
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"LPI is not private sector"
Time: 19.11.2003 21:57
Comment: We at the Linux Professional Institute are flattered to be listed amongst the "high-tech heavyweights" named in this release. However, I would remind readers that LPI is an NPO that has substantial support from both vendors and the grassroots community.
Evan Leibovitch
President
Linux Professional Institute
evan@lpi.org
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WSIS and civil society: A backgrounder
We have compiled this backgrounder to give you a complete picture of the WSIS from the perspective of the civil society. Explains academic concepts and issues related to knowledge society, notes activities and concerns of the civil society, and lists actors and organisations involved in the WSIS process as well as links to related Websites.
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