Overview of the WSIS Conference in Geneva

The World Summit on Information Society Conference was a gathering of global forces in an attempt to better organize ICT by creating a global network that empowers people. A major goal of the (WSIS) conference was to organize the necessary networks to promote a global information system that more effectively addresses the needs of the world's people. The event was a way to bring the grassroots together with prominent leaders to get a sense of how to move forward to effectively use ICT to solve serious global problems in relation to human suffering and neglect with a particular focus on underserved communities. OVF Country Director Kennedy Onyango submitted several Field Reports on WSIS while he was there in Geneva. Below is a synopsis of this with editing and some added commentary by Jeff Buderer.

ICT's Impact's on Rural Economic Development and Integration
Kennedy Onyango did a presentation on ICT's Impact's on Rural Economic Development and Integration. He won the Category Award in: Rural Development and was also Published in the Global Knowledge Partnerships (GKP) Stakeholders Newsletter and was among the 23 projects taken worldwide by the GKP for further work. Kennedy managed to talk with Terri Willard, Project Manager IISD and Coordinator of Youth Creating Digital Opportunities (YCDO) who was the moderator during his presentation. She was very much impressed by our work in Mbita and said that our initiative has the capability of bringing the much needed solutions to address the digital, culture and health divide among the underserved rural communities. Terri has promised to bring Kennedy on board when youth issues are being discussed at the GKP as well as to invite Kennedy to the GKP Annual meeting in May 2004. He also discussed with her the OVF African Heartland Ventures (AHV) program, an eCo-Tourism initiative that will involve student exchange programs between African countries and the developed world.

Knowledge Transfer between Cultures
Joerg who is also working with the Young Think Tank of the Club of Rome (tt30) did a presentation about Knowledge Transfer between Cultures drawing upon the experience of distinguished people such as Nigerian scholar Professor Akinsola Akiwowo. Joerg’s presentation explored the divides in the world (Why are there divides? How have they have come about and what are the downsides of technology and future scenarios). Professor Akinsola Akiwowo for example has been involved with the Nigerian educational development and reform in the past decades. His focus is on indigenous culture/reconstruction efforts after colonization has helped to restore Yoruba culture. Professor Akiwowo was also involved in first national reconstruction operation of the Nigerian government.

Joerg's presentation explored the divides in the world (Why are there divides? How have they come about and what are the downsides of technology and future scenarios). Kennedy also delivered a module about his work in his home village Mbita, Kenya and his work through EDTEC and oneVillage's ICT-based eCo-Village Proposal (Download Word file) . The eCo-Vilage proposal is a key component towards the implementation of the oneVillage Initiative.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo Speaks about the Significance of WSIS
At the UNESCO Symposium on the Knowledge Society a panel of eminent politicians and technology leaders spoke including Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo discussed Africa's role in the knowledge society. Africa, he said, is the "original home of knowledge - the awareness of your surroundings and the indigenous capacity to explore, create, transmit ideas and opportunities." But over time, new civilizations would appear, and Africa fell further behind. "What happened to the genesis of knowledge in Africa?" he asked. Through centuries of colonization and social strife, Africa's capacity to create knowledge was eroded.

We are now in a global village, the Nigerian President says but what kind of village is it if it is that we are not truly communicating with each other. "People talk about having too much information," he added, "but what about making information accessible to all? Now we have this thing called ICT. What does it mean in an African village? Can it be of benefit to improve ordinary peoples' knowledge? I've seen the impact of it." Obasanjo talked of the benefits of ICT on Nigerian farmers in relation to being able to predict the weather. "Rural farmers do not have the education that we have, but they are not morons," he said emphatically. They only need greater access to knowledge and education.

Democratizing knowledge is an uphill task. He adds “We are only paying lip service to democratization in general, let alone to democratization of knowledge,” but “You can't talk about freedom without free access to knowledge." And that is one of the most valuable aspects of a integrated global ICT system believe will have added power to organize towards political social and economic self-determination. But as he notes it will not be possible to develop this kind of truly beneficial technology transfer between developed and developing countries until there is a dialogue. In conclusion he said that “Our work and decisions we reach here will determine the world we live in tomorrow” and whether we will live in a world driven by a community human identity and a global commons or one of increasing division and separateness.

John Gage’s WSIS Presentation
Following the Nigerian president’s presentation John Gage of Sun Microsystems spoke, focusing directly on the Nigerian president's comment that people do not have freedom unless they they have free access to knowledge. Gage painted an image of young people in Nigeria at a cybercafe - not only are they being exposed to information from around the world, he said, but they are the first generation to be creators of content, masters of a medium in which they can be producers. He also showed a technology which he believes can allow people to create their content by allowing them to experience a world that is greater than their everyday experiences. Keyhole Pro a package offered by Keyhole a Mountainview California based company allows uses to move rapidly around the world virtually as if they are flying across the landscape.

The Creative Commons Project
Lawrence Lessig of Stanford noted that copyright is an essential feature of a creative society, but one that needs to be kept in tune with the technological times. Copyright law is wildly out of date -- it presumes too easily that all content must require permission before use, creating transaction costs that often make content inaccessible to anyone but rich people with lawyers. Technology enables creativity, he said, but the law disables it. The problem can be tackled in two ways a top-down approach or a bottom-up approach. A bottom-up approach, he said, opens up a world of possibilities. Lessig gives an example of a system of creating copyrights online as a way to increase the availability of these services without any lawyers getting in the way. So far over a million websites have used Creative Commons and it's spreading internationally. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it will add a "developing countries clause" to the licenses, so content may be tagged as being freely available for people in the developing world, while those in the developing world would have to make other licensing arrangements.

OVF Represensted at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva
The WSIS conference was an attempt to organize the necessary networks to promote and organization effective policies, strategies and technologies towards a global information and scommunications system that more effectively addresses the needs of the world’s people.

ICT's Impact's on Rural Economic Development and Integration
Kennedy Onyango did a presentation on ICT's Impact's on Rural Economic Development and Integration. He won the Category Award in: Rural Development and was also Published in the Global Knowledge Partnerships (GKP) Stakeholders Newsletter and was among the 23 projects taken worldwide by the GKP for further work. Kennedy managed to talk with Terri Willard, Project Manager IISD and Coordinator of Youth Creating Digital Opportunities (YCDO) who was the moderator during his presentation. She was very much impressed by our work in Mbita and said that our initiative has the capability of bringing the much needed solutions to address the digital, culture and health divide among the underserved rural communities. Terri has promised to bring Kennedy on board when youth issues are being discussed at the GKP as well as to invite Kennedy to the GKP Annual meeting in May 2004. He also discussed with her the OVF African Heartland Ventures (AHV) program, an eCo-Tourism initiative that will involve student exchange programs between African countries and the developed world.
More on his experiences at WSIS

Knowledge Transfer between Cultures
Joerg who is also working with the Young Think Tank of the Club of Rome (tt30) did a presentation about Knowledge Transfer between Cultures drawing upon the experience of distinguished people such as Nigerian scholar Professor Akinsola Akiwowo. Joerg’s presentation explored the divides in the world (Why are there divides? How have they have come about and what are the downsides of technology and future scenarios). Professor Akinsola Akiwowo for example has been involved with the Nigerian educational development and reform in the past decades. His focus is on indigenous culture/reconstruction efforts after colonization has helped to restore Yoruba culture. Professor Akiwowo was also involved in first national reconstruction operation of the Nigerian government.

Joerg's presentation explored the divides in the world (Why are there divides? How have they come about and what are the downsides of technology and future scenarios). Kennedy also delivered a module about his work in his home village Mbita, Kenya and his work through EDTEC and oneVillage's ICT-based eCo-Village Proposal (Word file) . The eCo-Vilage proposal is a key component towards the implementation of the oneVillage Initiative.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo Speaks about the Significance of WSIS
At the UNESCO Symposium on the Knowledge Society, a panel of eminent politicians and technology leaders spoke including Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo who discussed Africa's role in the knowledge society. Africa, he said, is the "original home of knowledge--the awareness of your surroundings and the indigenous capacity to explore, create, transmit ideas and opportunities." But over time, new civilizations appeared, and Africa fell further behind. "What happened to the genesis of knowledge in Africa?" he asked. Through centuries of colonization and social strife, Africa's capacity to create knowledge was eroded.

We are now in a global village, the Nigerian President says but what kind of village is it if it is that we are not truly communicating with each other. "People talk about having too much information," he added, "but what about making information accessible to all? Now we have this thing called ICT. What does it mean in an African village? Can it be of benefit to improve ordinary peoples' knowledge? I've seen the impact of it." Obasanjo talked of the benefits of ICT on Nigerian farmers in relation to being able to predict the weather. "Rural farmers do not have the education that we have, but they are not morons," he said emphatically. They only need greater access to knowledge and education.

Democratizing knowledge is an uphill task. He adds “We are only paying lip service to democratization in general, let alone to democratization of knowledge,” but “You can't talk about freedom without free access to knowledge." And that is one of the most valuable aspects of a integrated global ICT system is that it will give people who have been traditionally shut out out of the political process added power to organize towards political, social and economic self-determination. But as he notes it will not be possible to develop this kind of truly beneficial technology transfer between developed and developing countries until there is a dialogue. In conclusion he said that “Our work and decisions we reach here will determine the world we live in tomorrow” and whether we will live in a world driven by a community human identity and a global commons or one of increasing division and separateness.

John Gage’s WSIS Presentation
Following the Nigerian President’s presentation John Gage of Sun Microsystems spoke, focusing directly on the his comments that people do not have freedom unless they they have free access to knowledge. Gage painted an image of young people in Nigeria at a cybercafe - not only are they being exposed to information from around the world, he said, but they are the first generation to be creators of content, masters of a medium in which they can be producers. He also showed a technology which he believes can allow people to create their content by allowing them to experience a world that is greater than their everyday experiences. Keyhole Pro a package offered by Keyhole a Mountainview, California based company allows uses to move rapidly around the world virtually as if they are flying across the landscape.

The Creative Commons Project
Lawrence Lessig of Stanford noted that copyright law is an essential feature of a creative society, but one that needs to be kept in tune with the technological times. Copyright law is wildly out of date -- it presumes too easily that all content must require permission before use, creating transaction costs that often make content inaccessible to anyone but rich people with lawyers. Technology enables creativity, he said, but the law disables it. The problem can be tackled in two ways a top-down approach or a bottom-up approach. A bottom-up approach, he said, opens up a world of possibilities. Lessig gives an example of a system of creating copyrights online as a way to increase the availability of these services without any lawyers getting in the way. So far over a million websites have used Creative Commons and it's spreading internationally. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it will add a "developing countries clause" to the licenses, so content may be tagged as being freely available for people in the developing world, while those in the developing world would have to make other licensing arrangements.