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The Middle East and North Africa (TC-MENA) made a distinctive mark in eINDIA 2008 Awards, winning honours for three development projects from Syria,Egypt and Sudan run by leaders of Telecentre in MENA.
The Reefnet Project in Syria was chosen as the winner of the ‘Best Government Initiative of the year’ in the Telecentre category – eINDIA2008 Awards. Reefnet is a Strategic ICT program for social and economic development, run by the Syrian Ministry of Communication and the United Nation Development Program (UNDP). The project aims to:
- Bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas;
- Use ICT as a powerful instrument in the development of local communities;
- Create an enabling environment for the use of ICT in Syria;
- Accelerate the development of information facilities and infrastructures as well as to improve the capacity to benefit from ICT.
The project has more dimensions in development Syrian community and digital divide between rural and urban community through ICT for development.
The target of project is promoting rural ( women, youth, children, marginalized and people with disabilities ) engagement with ICT services through universal service and access initiatives such as telecentres.
The ICT Trust Fund project in Egypt was chosen as the winner of the ICT supporting agriculture using Mobile IT Club in the Telecentre category – eINDIA2008 Awards. ICT Trust Fund was established as a partnership between the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology (MCIT) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2002 to assist in the socio-economic development of Egypt, by using information technology to build an information society capable of capitalizing on the emerging knowledge revolution.
The Main Objective is to support Egypt’s socio-economic development program through:
-Establishing Public-private partnerships;
-Using ICT to further development in Egypt’
-Increasing awareness of the developmental potential of ICT;
Making ICT more accessible and affordable to all citizens.
The Gedaref digital city organization (GDCO) in Sudan was chosen as the winner of the ‘Best innovations at the Grassroots Telecentre,’ category. Gedaref Digital City Organisation (GDCO) is one of the civil society organisations in the state of Gedaref (Sudan) established in late 2004. The organisation aims to promote the comprehensive development and all round advancement of the individual citizens in the state. Its main objectives are to:
- Use Information Technology for the development of the community;
- Enhance capacity building through training and workshops;
- Provide special treatment for the disabled through ICT;
- Bridge the digital divide;
- Establish a huge data base in Gedaref state; http://www.gedaref.org
Karim Kasem, Ahmed Eisa and Nabil Eid are the three development leaders and winners in MENA. We will work together to promote community development via ICTs for building a bright future through telecentre.org.
Nabil Eid
Syria
nabieid@gmail.com
