Digital World Forum, Final event, Brussels, 30/09/2009
By Cédric Pierre-Louis on Saturday 3 October 2009, 17:29 - Computer & High-Tech - Permalink
Wednesday 30th september, was organised the final event of the Digital World Forum in Brussels. This initiative held by the european Commission was supposed to bring together experts, NGO and firms working or involved in the ICT field. During two years ideas, good practices, concepts were shared and discussed to make more affordable, accessible and inclusive ICT (Information and Communication Technologies).
The Digital World Forum, which is a European project set within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), is focused on the use of ICT to leverage economic development in Africa and Latin America. As I also demonstrated it in my master thesis, «using ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) would be the easiest and possibly only way to develop and deploy minimal services (health, education, business, government, etc.) to rural communities and under-privileged populations». Thus, the final aim of this project was to study low-cost ICT technologies to deploy in developing countries, and more specifically low-cost laptops, low-cost broadband wireless infrastructure, and mobile.
Because of my passion for development issues related to ICT, I could not miss this final event, all the more so as Mr. Devars from the european Commission (DG INFSO) advised me to participate to it. This event was extremely enriching in terms of knowledge, experience sharing and networking. I had the opportunities to talk with Serge Ferré, vice-president of Nokia, about mobile banking issues. Mr Ferré, who is also head of Nokia EU Representative Office in Brussels, delivered a captivating presentation. It was also very interesting to talk with Daniels from U-Connect (Uganda), Nii Quaynor, Director at-Large of ICANN chosen from the African region, Fernando H.F. Botelho, a international consultant who did a touching and fascinating esposé, about IT accessibility for disabled (he was blind himself).
Last but not least, I had the great pleasure to meet Joy Tang who is President, Executive Director and Board Chair of OneVillage Foundation, a NGO based in Taipei (Taiwan). OVF is actively contributing to ICT projects in developing countries. OVF considers that Information and Communication Technologies are exceptional tools to address World Urgent Issues. Their approach is to bring together skills, people, ideas to make collaboration easier and create synergies in the field of ICTs. The goal of OVF ; improving people lives, and contribute to sustain development by bridging the digital gap.
I would like to be part of this great initiative because I do believe that contribute to deploy ICTs in developing countries, and make them more affordable is crucial to boost the development of developing regions and significantly enhance people lives, particularly in Sub-saharan Africa. If you did not do it yet, I invite you to read my master thesis (in French, sorry).
