FOSS Movement Voices Heard - We are now one
voice: The Global FOSS Movement has been officially announced at the WSIS 2005

>From: "Fouad Riaz Bajwa" <bajwa@fossfp.org>
>To:
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>CC: marpasha@yahoo.com, Ecommerce@unctad.org, hosman@pseb.org.pk
>Subject: FOSS Movement Voices Heard-We are now
>one voice: The Global FOSS Movement has been
>officially announced at the WSIS 2005
>
>UNITED NATIONS
>UNIDO
>UNDP
>
>PRESS RELEASE - FOR INFORMATION ONLY
>NOT AN OFFICIAL RECORD
>
>ICT WIDENS HORIZONS FOR THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT
>
>UNIDO and UNDP Help SMEs and NGOs Narrow Information Divide at WSIS
>
>Tunis, 18 November 2005 ­ ICT access and
>applications have come a step closer for small-
>and medium enterprises (SMEs) and
>non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here this
>week. As the focus of the joint United Nations
>Industrial Development Organization
>(UNIDO)-United Nations Development Programme
>(UNDP) initiative “Sharing the Future”, during
>the World Summit on the Information Society
>(15-19 November 2005), 21 SMEs from private
>industry and 60 NGOs­representing a total of 60
>countries worldwide­were able to claim a larger
>stake in the global information society.
>
>SMEs, for example, held some 475 one-to-one
>negotiations with potential Information and
>Communication Technologies (ICT) partners,
>of which more than 100 are likely to lead to
>formal working relationships. In addition, three
>memoranda of understanding are expected to be
>signed here before the end of the World Summit.
>Cross-fertilization has characterized this joint
>initiative, with 28 NGOs and ten SMEs forging
>closer cooperation in the context of “Sharing
>the Future”. South-South partnership
>opportunities were explored by participating
>NGOs, who committed themselves to an ongoing
>exchange of knowledge and potential expansion of
>joint activities. Nine NGOs have already
>formulated the “Global Movement for Promoting
>the Free and Open Source Software”, which has
>attracted the support, in principle, of a number
>of other international development and donor organizations.
>
>As part of the Summit’s parallel ICT4all
>exhibition, the UNIDO/UNDP initiative has
>presented the hands-on experience of ICT for industry
>and sustainable development from the perspective
>of these two key players in the development challenge.
>
>The Summit’s action plan emphasizes ICT as a
>means to bridge the poverty gap, a tool to
>achieve sustainable development and to build an
>inclusive information society based on effective
>partnerships. During “Sharing the Future”, these private-sector SMEs have been
>joined by NGOs from developing countries, and
>particularly least developed countries, to give
>a practical perspective on the challenges
>they face in entering the information highway as
>well as to seek partnerships in e-business for
>industry and exchange views on the
>creative use of ICT.
>
>In the context of applying ICT to achieve the
>Millennium Development Goals, UNIDO and UNDP
>organized three workshops and two high level
>panels, as part of “Sharing the Future”, to
>pinpoint the particular ICT challenges
>confronting SMEs and NGOs. These include the
>need to progress through three fundamental ICT
>stages: from computer literacy through
>informative literacy to knowledge literacy. The
>dimensions of the ICT-for-development challenge
>were identified at a variety of levels:
>individual e-learning; social inclusion in ICT;
>national e-governance; regional e-networks;
>industrial e-business and global Internet citizenship.
>
>Participants have also had the opportunity to
>tap the experience of experts presenting cutting
>edge ICT products in support of development
>including demonstration of the $100 OLPC (One
>laptop per child) initiative, developed by
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be
>implemented in partnership with UNDP.
>
>“Sharing the Future” has been supported by the
>Governments of the Netherlands and Tunisia.
>
>More information is available at: www.unido.org/wsis
>
>Contact for further information:
>Hans Pruim, UNIDO, Vienna
>Tel.: +43 1 26026 4755
>E-mail: h.pruim@unido.org or wsis@unido.org
>
>Maria Orfanidou, UNDP Tunis
>Tel.: +216 71 564 011 (ext. 215)
>E-mail: maria.orfanidou@undp.org
>
> Regards,
> -----------------
> Fouad Riaz Bajwa
> General Secretary
> FOSSFP: Free & Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
> IN TUNISIA AT THE WSIS SHARING THE FUTURE - UNDP
> Tel: ++923334661290
> URL: www.fossfp.org
> -------------------
Nearby Fri Nov 18 18:24:18 2005