News

MONTRÉAL (FD for APCNews) -

APC members identified seven areas of strategic importance that APC should prioritise for the next five years during the APC council meeting held in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007. Some of these areas build on work we have been doing since 2000, such as internet rights, for example; others are new. Two of the seven priorities relate specifically to strengthening the capacity and sustainability of APC. We offer you an overview of APC’s strategic priorities for 2008-2012.

PRAGUE (Various for GenderIT.org) -

This month, APC women’s GenderIT bulletin investigates online crime, cyberstalking, and asks how women are being affected. In “Finding a difficult balance – Human rights, law enforcement and cyber violence against women” Mavic Cabrera-Balleza speaks to activists from South Africa and the USA. Wieting Xu looks at cybercrime in India. Argentinian lawyer Carlos Gregorio argues that “Cybercrime laws are not enough, there is also a need for education”. And Ramata Soré discovers that in Burkina Faso women are the perpetrators as well as the victims of internet fraud.

BUWAMA (Francis Mwathi for UgaBYTES) -

On the 6th of August 2008, Dafne Plou an APC facilitator on the Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) with telecentres touched down in Uganda on a mission of evaluating how ICTs impact the community within gender lines.

PRAGUE (Lenka Simerska for APC WNSP) -

Taking control of technology for women’s advocacy took a different tack in the Czech Republic, where APC WNSP Europe introduced the project “Women into IT” to challenge stereotypes around women and ICTs and attract more women into the IT field.

YAOUNDE (Avis Momeni for APCNews) -

PROTEGE QV will join the rest of the world over to celebrate the Software Freedom Day 2008 taking place on September 20 2008. The innovation in this year’s free and open source software activities in Yaounde, Cameroon, is that they will be help in an open air setting.

LONDON (APC for APCNews) -

“Access to the internet is a thousand times cheaper in Scandinavian countries than in my village,” says Nigerian activist John Dada, who specialises in information and communications technologies (ICTs) for development. In order to contribute to the discussion on what can make access to the internet real for people, specially the poor and marginalised, APC is launching a series on equitable access that includes papers and commentaries on the themes of business models, policy and regulation, tools and technologies and people, networks and capabilities. We ask for your comments.

BUDAPEST (maxigas for APCNews) -

A European Union directive on data retention is set to be implemented in all member states from 2009, requiring all telecom providers to hold on to your email’s destination, the subject line and the sending time. European internet service providers are requested to retain not only email, but any metadata of communication originating from their network. But isn’t that a violation of the fundamental right to privacy, as defined by our 60-year old Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Isn’t it in direct defiance of APC’s Internet Rights Charter? Groups associated with the APC community, academics and radical technology collectives converge onto Budapest in September to seek a way out of Fortress Europe 2.0.

SAPPORO (Andrew Garton for APCNews) -

Click here to watch the Identifying the Information Commons sampler from Day 01 and that of Day 02 of the iCommons iSummit. The excerpt was produced and put together by APC.au’s Andrew Garton. APC’s Australian member ison the ground in Japan to offer the world a glimpse of what the iSummit 08 is about and to produce the joint APC and iCommons micro-documentary, Nailing the Commons. The composer, producer and media artist participated in the do-it-yourself video and Asia Commons tracks in Sapporo and along with and BlueLink’s Pavel Antonov, interviewed a cross-section of participants. Here is a selection of report backs on the Asia Commons…

JOHANNESBURG (Alan Finlay for APCNews) -

Privatisation without regulation does not necessarily improve service delivery, and may even decrease access to information and communication technology for the poor. This is the view of US-based academic and ICT policy analyst Robert Horwitz, who was speaking at a one-week research workshop held in Johannesburg in July 2008. Horwitz is no newcomer to South Africa, or to the politics behind antennas, cables and wires.

SAPPORO (FD for APCNews) -

On July 29, free thinkers and open culture activists from around the world gathered on Hokkaidō island, Japan. What is so free and open about this venue, traditionally inhabited by the Ainu People? The fourth edition of the global ICommons ISummit, reply those converging on the island’s city, Sapporo. The summit is set to “grow the commons” until August 1 and beyond, as participants – among them APC members and staff – will advocate for open content, open education, do-it-yourself video, and academic research on free culture.
>>Read Natalie Brown’s blog post on linguistic diversity at iSummit 08
>>Watch Andrew Garton’s in-the-field video, asking the question, what is the commons?

LIMA (FD for APCNews) -

As part of the TRICALCAR project a set of seven new training modules, which the WILAC network is pleased to share with its African counterpart, has been made available. The modules range from WiMax to energy for telecommunications systems, visiting VoIP, long distance wireless links and community, gender and technology on the way. There are even sustainability strategies and network planning modules.

JOHANNESBURG (Natalie Brown for APCNews) -

As new copyright laws attempt to keep pace with the shifting landscape of digital cultural production, legal restrictions on media use and distribution are being championed by heavyweights in the global media industry. This has led to the web of restrictions on media consumption becoming denser. Civil society network APC hopes to re-shape the discourse surrounding piracy by providing a thoroughly researched, credible alternative to the industry’s data.

THE HAGUE (Hivos) -

At the end of 2008 Dutch funder Hivos will commission an external evaluation of its ICT & Media programme “Making Civil Voices Heard” to be carried out in the course of 2009. A call for proposals & terms of reference will be circulated in October 2008 to interested evaluation researchers. People interested in receiving the terms of reference for this position should send a very brief CV to Karel Chambille, Hivos Evaluation Manager, at k.chambille[at]hivos.nl

GOREE ISLAND (FD for APCNews) -

The president of the Cameroonian non profit organisation and APC-member PROTEGE QV, Sylvie Siyam Siwe, was elected president of the GOREeTIC on Friday June 20 2008 in Senegal. She was unanimously voted in as the first president of the GOREeTIC nework – a newly created group of journalists, activists and ICT4D advocates who intend to make internet policy reform a top priority.

MONTEVIDEO (AL for APCNews) -

APC’s new member Sulá Batsu is a cooperative operating in Costa Rica since 2005. It sees itself as a collective workspace for social change. It’s experience spans over the sharing of knowledge, social economy and information and communication technologies. APCNews interviewed Margarita Salas of Sulá Batsú in order to grasp the challenges associated with the cooperative model, the opportunities and challenges that the internet represents in the Costa Rican context, the link between gender and technology and her perspective on what is referred to as social economy.

MEXICO CITY (Erika Smith for APC WNSP) -

The Association for Progressive Communications Women’s Programme is proud to announce that Take Back the Tech was awarded an honorary mention by the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica International Competition for Cyber Arts for its innovative, collaborative campaign to end violence against women.

(WOUGNET) -

WOUGNET has explored the use of SMS in information sharing and carrying out SMS campaigns around different themes. In a test of Mobile Advocacy Tools a campaign on ICTs and poverty reduction, was successfully carried out in April/May 2008 and proves that SMS is a powerful tool of information sharing. WOUGNET members, partners and interested persons discussed questions sent out by the secretariat on the theme, ‘ICTs: Is your wealth a click away?

SEOUL -

This is the statement issued by civil society, gathered at the OECD ministerial conference on the future of the internet, which ended on June 18. It says: “The policy goals for the Future Internet Economy should be considered within the broader framework of protection of human rights, the promotion of democratic institutions, access to information, and the provision of affordable and non-discriminatory access to advanced communication networks and services” [pdf format].

MONTREAL (FD for APCNews) -

APC welcomes its new Cambodian member, Open Institute. “We see ourselves as facilitators,” explained Chim Manavy, executive director of the start-up NGO. “We facilitate communication, knowledge-sharing and gender equity through the strategic use of ICT and of the Khmer language”. What this means on the ground, is easy to understand when one takes a look at the track record of OI’s colleagues.