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February 25, 2005

ITU Plugs Telecentres Caucus

It turns out the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has included a nice plug for the WSIS telecentres caucus in its latest Prepcom newsletter, including a quote from me. Here's a snippet:

Telecentre Caucus Sees True Potential

A meeting of the Telecentres Caucus was held in order to further its work to articulate a vision regarding the role of telecentres, community technical centres, telecottages, and similar institutions, in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The caucus currently has 200 members from more than 60 nations. Many of the participants represent local, national and regional telecentre initiatives, as well as public libraries and educational institutions. There are also numerous observers from government, the private sector and international agencies.

The Telecentres Caucus is promoting sustainable, multi-purpose telecentres that enable disenfranchised communities to bridge the digital divide and join the knowledge society. More than just providing Internet access, telecentres help people build new skills, gain access to important health information, become producers of local content and engage civically within their communities.

The caucus, chaired by Andy Carvin of the Digital Divide Network, said that [they hope] "that the second phase of the summit will help catalyze ongoing interactions between stakeholders in government, civil society and the private sector that see telecentres as an important tool for achieving the MDGs." Telecentres are often under-resourced, with limited financial and human capacity, yet they have enormous development mandates within their communities. "We hope that the summit will enable an ongoing exchange of best practices, sustainability models, curricula and other resources that will allow telecentres achieve their true potential and help marginalized communities cross the digital divide."

Always feels nice to be appreciated. :-) -andy

Posted by acarvin at February 25, 2005 6:14 AM

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