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.
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.
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 on WSIS, please visit http://www.wsis.org.... -andy
