Telecentre.org Foundation, supports the establishment and sustainability of grassroots level telecentres. These telecentres – public places of access to the Internet and other digital technologies that help promote personal and social development – offer crucial services, skills and opportunities to people living in remote and rural locations around the world. Since its launch at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in 2005, the telecentre.org programme has been instrumental in setting up telecentre networks in more than 40 countries. Initially administered by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the programme is now managed by Telecentre.org Foundation, an independent, non-profit, non-stock international organisation registered in Manila, Philippines.
The conference will also serve as a meeting of the Global Telecentre Network, which has an estimated total of 500,000 telecentres serving approximately 1 billion users worldwide. Hosted in Europe for the first time, Spark is the fourth Global Forum on Telecentres, with previous events held in Tunisia (2005), Malaysia (2007), and Chile (2011).