British Council The Daily Summit. News, views and links live from the World Summit on the Information Society World Summit on the Information Society
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AHMED REDA

December 07, 2003

Egyptian Perspectives - President Hosni Mubarak heads the Egyptian delegation to WSIS along with several delegations from the Middle East and North Africa. Cairo has gone a long way in ICT during the past decade but several problems still exist and some are saying it is not about money. More
Ahmed Reda @ 03:07 PM | Comment (1) | TrackBack (0)

December 02, 2003

E-commerce and development? UNCTAD's E-Commerce and Development Report is out. The report claims that "while the Internet euphoria of the late 1990s may have subsided, the economic gains of ICT have broadly permeated business and society alike."

It also identifies what impact the growth of the digitial economy is likely to have on developing countries, with India's experience showing that "the growing market for IT services and business process outsourcing offers poor countries a new development opportunity."
Ahmed Reda @ 01:11 AM | Comment (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 28, 2003

In the news, TeleDoc is an Indian tele-medicine project that will receive the UN backed World Summit Award (WSA) for e-Health at WSIS on December 10. The project is run by Jiva Institute and uses mobile technology to deliver healthcare for India's rural population.
Ahmed Reda @ 06:43 PM | | TrackBack (0)

November 27, 2003

Civil society organizations drafted their own "vision document" to counter what they see as an "inability of government representatives to agree even on basic questions."
Ahmed Reda @ 04:08 PM | | TrackBack (0)
A new study on Registrar Market Share & Service Offerings showed that top 10 domain name registrars based on market share are respectively: Network Solutions, Tucows, Godaddy.com, Register.com, eNom, BulkRegister, Schlund.de, DirectNic.com, Dotster
Ahmed Reda @ 03:52 PM | | TrackBack (0)

November 26, 2003

WSIS stunts volume 1 - A t-shirt campaign, run by NGO Gender Strategies Working Group, has had government delegates craning their necks to read a message that until now had fallen upon deaf ears.
Ahmed Reda @ 11:58 PM | | TrackBack (0)

November 17, 2003

More news "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 WSIS. 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.
Ahmed Reda @ 07:17 PM |
The Future- It seems that the internet community is growing so fast that newspapers around the globe are trying to preserve their status. "In France, circulation has fallen from around 6 million daily readers in 1945 to 1 million in 2000 - and quite likely 800 000 today. In the USA, huge demographic swathes, including the 18-24 age group beloved of advertisers, have no members willing to read a newspaper every day. Among traditionally newspaper friendly social groups, the number of individuals reading a paper a day has dropped dramatically in the past four decades." More
Ahmed Reda @ 05:56 PM |
World Press Freedom Committee says "The summit presents a potentially serious threat to press freedom, as it is seen by numerous groups as an opportunity to introduce restrictive proposals. Coalitions of these groups have met, stated their goals for influencing the summit outcome and have embarked on plans of action."
Ahmed Reda @ 12:34 PM |

November 15, 2003

Getting Started - It seems that WSIS is about to get started with a handful of surprises. Daily Summit hears that there is a lot of talk about changing the venue of the second phase of the summit and holding it in Cape Town instead of Tunisia. It might be for political reasons but the second surprise is that ITU (International Telecommunication Union) is considering withdrawal from the second phase as well. Reasons given range from lack of resources and lay-offs to inability to coup with intense and broad political negotiations. More
Ahmed Reda @ 10:14 PM |

November 12, 2003

American Approach - The United States commented on WSIS Draft Declaration and Action Plan saying "Information and communication technologies (ICTs) play a critical role in sustainable economic and social development. Access to information requires an environment that promotes the creation of knowledge and ideas. The realization of the digital opportunities afforded by the information society can contribute to a better life for all citizens through the promotion of democracy, transparency, accountability and good governance. The United States urges participants to use this unique opportunity to reaffirm and implement Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that recognizes the right of each individual to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."... but Reporters Without Borders, among other organisations, offers an interesting view of the American media after the terrorist attacks.
Ahmed Reda @ 10:49 PM |

November 11, 2003

Exclusion - "Human Rights in China (HRIC), the only organization devoted exclusively to human rights issues in China, has been denied accreditation to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) scheduled for Geneva in December."... Is there any reason for this?!
Ahmed Reda @ 04:43 PM |
Women and WSIS- "Isis International Manila is organising the Panel Presentation "Globalised Media and ICT Systems and its Intersection with Globalisation, Fundamentalism and Militarism" as part of its active engagement in the WSIS process. The Panel Presentation will be conducted within the parallel WSIS space booked by the NGO Gender Strategies Working Group (NGO GSWG) on 10 December 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland."
Ahmed Reda @ 12:31 AM |

October 29, 2003

Information Revolution. A report issued by RAND, casts some light on the Information Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa, providing a great deal of statistics in its attempt to tackle the issue..
Ahmed Reda @ 11:43 PM | | TrackBack (0)
Communication Rights. WSIS was discussed in several meetings and workshops during the World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre, January 2003. Notes from two of the workshops were gathered by Sasha Costanza-Chock and Pradip Thomas, who are both involved in the campaign CRIS (Communication Rights in the Information Society).
Ahmed Reda @ 11:09 PM | | TrackBack (0)

October 25, 2003

Freedom of Expression. The issue of freedom of expression in certain countries needs to be tackled seriously at WSIS. After all, you can't get information without someone being free to provide it...
Ahmed Reda @ 10:55 AM | | TrackBack (0)
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