The BBC World Service Trust, an independent charity promoting development through the innovative use of the media, in partnership with the BBC World Service, chose Thursday morning to bring together an audience to take part in the production of a radio programme on "Access for All", to be aired on 18 November 2005.

The event focused on the theme of "Using Communications for Development – User Generated Content". Participants included panellists from the public and private sector and civil society. One private-sector participant emphasized the importance of teaming up with local partners when developing products, and finding win-win solutions for all. There was also a presentation on the national Egyptian "PC for every home" initiative, which is successfully helping achieve affordable connectivity for all across the country.

How is the BBC using user-generated content from around the world in its productions? "My Life", a collaborative project developed by the BBC World Service Trust, was an important highlight of the morning’s session.

The story of this project, which has enabled young women in the Arab world to develop their own audio-visual stories, left no one in the audience untouched. Through workshops in four Arab countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen), the project has allowed a group of young women to tell their stories through drawing, photography and audio while learning about the basics of radio broadcasting. Touching upon religion, tradition, education, disability and more, this powerful material, which is shared with the world through BBC websites, shows the lives and ambitions of under-privileged women in a genuine way. As people in many countries are sceptical towards media, and often of the perception that Western media distorts reality, allowing these women to be the creators of the information presented has made them feel they have a voice.

The ITU Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) has come up with a new vision of a regulatory framework that should help promote broadband deployment and access in developing countries, according to an announcement this morning.

Recognizing that wireless broadband technologies have great potential to help bridge the digital divide, the 120 CEOs and members of boards of national regulatory authorities that participated in the sixth GSR, held in Hammamet (Tunisia) ahead of the World Summit on the Information Society, agreed to a set of "best practice guidelines" for spectrum management aimed at promoting broadband access. For more information, see the press release here.

Will smart devices one day serve as our butlers and secretaries? Can cars drive us where we want to if we tell them? "Science fiction is about to become science fact," said Lara Srivastava, lead author of ITU’s report The Internet of Things, launched today. As everyday objects become connected, "things themselves will be the network", explained Professor Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The days of just being a thing are over," he added, because objects will have "personalities" capable of being Internet users and communicators on behalf of humans.

The Internet of Things foresees a technological revolution that depends on dynamic innovation in a number of important areas, namely: "tagging" things using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology; "feeling" things via sensor technologies that detect environmental and physical changes; "thinking" things through embedding intelligence into everyday objects; and "shrinking" things, or miniaturizing, thanks to new fields like nanotechnology.

"We are standing on the brink of technological ubiquity," observed Ms Srivastava. As everyday objects become sensitive to our needs, consider the tremendous benefits to humanity. Robot science is creating appliances that lighten domestic chores, and can help the elderly and disabled. RFID will alert parents about their children’s whereabouts. Research is under way to apply nanotechnology in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, including HIV/AIDS. Sensor technologies will warn us of impending natural disasters or detect landmines in conflict zones.

But the ethical issues about privacy raised by these technologies may impede its adoption. RFID can track people and profile behaviour and the fear of spam interference arises. A major international effort will be needed to regulate these unwanted consequences within a legislative framework dealing with both the technical and ethical dimensions of the next-generation Internet revolution.

Do ICTs matter to the poor? This was the key question at a panel of the infoDev Forum on "Extending the Information Society to All," moderated by Kerry McNamara of infoDev, a multi-donor programme working with the World Bank.

Panelists agreed that ICTs do matter to those who live below the poverty line, but they only do so when these technologies actually address the specific needs and priorities of the poor. ICTs, in themselves, will never be a priority for the poor. "The focus needs to be on problems and not on technology," said, Ms Nyamai-Kisia, of AfriAfya. The experiences of the AfriAfya project in Kenya and the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India clearly exemplified the role of ICT as tools to combat poverty, diseases and illiteracy.

For Ms Namrate Bali of SEWA, affordability, accessibility, infrastructure and capacity building are interrelated factors that must be addressed in order to help the poor achieve change. Lack of qualified teachers is another major obstacle. UNESCO has launched a programme to address this challenge, which involves going to areas lacking teachers and training community leaders and other individuals so that they can in turn assist others.

The Tunisian postal service was one example of the use of existing infrastructure, such as post offices, to provide access to the Internet to large portions of the population. Services such as e-banking and electronic money transfers can improve the economic conditions of a population. Although more statistical evidence is needed on the impact of ICT on development, panelists recognized that mobile telephony had already made an impact in the lives of the poor worldwide. Among the panelists were Peter Smith, Assistant-Director-General of Education at UNESCO; Elhaj Gley, Director General, La Poste Tunisienne; and David Woolnough, Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom.

UNESCO hosted a roundtable on the topic of "Shaping the Future through Knowledge," moderated by Ann Lia, author/broadcaster. The discussion began with an acknowledgment that access to knowledge can influence, if not drive, human and societal development. The four key principles of knowledge societies were outlines by the Director General of UNESCO, namely: respect for human rights (and in particular freedom of expression), universal access to information and knowledge, respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, and capacity building through equal access to quality education. The shift from an information society to a knowledge society is the subject of a recent UNESCO World report "Towards Knowledge Societies," released on the occasion of WSIS.

Panellists included Wendy Hawkins of Intel; Ahmed Darwish, Egypt; A.O. Altwaijri, Director General of ISESCO; Atsushi Aiba, International Research Center for Japanese Studies; Hans Akerblom of Mindo, Sweden; Lynn St Amour, CEO, Internet Society; Viviane Reding, EC Commissioner for the Information Society; and Professor Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab. They agreed that mere access to information does not automatically lead to a knowledge-based society. So, any discussion of technology or information access must include questions of content, as the two are inextricably linked: humans cannot live by infrastructure alone. In the area of education, the process of learning should not be merely passive (i.e. as in the case of broadcast television) but interactive. Panellists highlighted the promotion of lifelong learning as the essential role played of libraries, art galleries and museums ("cultural apparatus" for society).

But is the shape of these cultural storehouses evolving? Though many argued that everything will eventually become electronic, others stated their concerns about the credibility of digital information, and the need for authenticity checks. There was a call to put in place mechanisms that safeguard and promote not only codified knowledge but also knowledge rooted in experience, practice and local learning (in particular indigenous learning). The importance of fostering local and multilingual content was stressed, coupled with the need to cater to the many illiterate people in the world. Only in this way can we bridge not only the "digital divide" but equally the "knowledge divide".

The WSIS Round Table focused on discussions on the achievements and challenges faced when implementing the goals and targets of the Geneva Plan of Action.

Participants emphasized that the implementation of ICT strategies and policies, including liberalization and privatization of public telecommunication operators, the mix of technologies used and the utilization of partnerships, cannot follow a single model. Each country needs to develop strategies and solutions that reflect the specific characteristics and resources available in their countries. Nevertheless, common approaches such as the use of multi-stakeholder partnerships, South-South collaboration, e-government applications and the use of telecentres for community access have brought about positive results in many countries, regardless of their level of development. Civil society representatives encouraged governments and international organizations to strengthen the participation of civil society in the follow-up activities of the summit and to promote the inclusion of groups with special needs, such as people with disabilities.

Representatives of the business sector underscored achievements made in reducing the costs of access to crucial technologies, such as mobile phones. They also pointed out that governments play a fundamental role in creating an enabling environment that facilitates growth in the telecommunications sector.

International organizations in the United Nations system, including ITU, will play a key coordination and facilitation role in the implementation of the Tunis Agenda. Mr Roberto Blois, Deputy Secretary-General of ITU, said that now stakeholders must move from words into action.

The event was moderated by Yoshinori Imai, Executive Editor of NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). Participants included: Heads of State and ministers from ten countries (Argentina, Cuba, Jamaica, Lesotho, Mexico, Pakistan, Republic of Guinea, Swaziland, Switzerland and Thailand), as well as representatives of international organizations (ITU, UN, UNECLAC and UNESCWA), the business community (Cisco Systems and Nokia ) and civil society (the Global Knowledge Partnership, the Association for Progressive Communications, the Thailand Association of the Blind and the Organisation tunisienne des jeunes medecins sans frontiers).

There is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to ICT, even within the same country, Pakistan said this afternoon at a roundtable attended by government, civil society and business representatives. Education was the key, and Pakistan, which had been emphasizing science and mathematics since the 1960s, could now count on a generation of ICT-educated youth. Stressing the need to use ICTs for "direct poverty reduction interventions", Pakistan said that reducing costs of PCs could make them more available to universities and communities.

Mexico said the country had promoted competition with transparent regulations while seeking to bring "social coverage" to communities. It had sought to make ICT "massively available," and had leap-frogged to broadband and satellites to reach the 40 per cent of the population without coverage. Connectivity has also been achieved through kiosks and ICT community centres. For its part, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) had brought second-hand computers and mobile ICT caravans to remote areas, successfully introducing young people to new technologies. "But only pro-poor technologies will overcome obstacles," ESCWA said.

Developing countries were presented with policies that were not always best suited for them, added the Association for Progressive Communications, as shown by South Africa’s privatization of its telecommunication sector. A "multi-stakeholder approach" should be realized consistently at the national level and had its risks –- for instance, ICT multinationals advising education ministries on which systems to adopt. "Let’s not forget that telecommunications are public goods, and we are talking about what underlies the development of countries," the Association said. For its part, Cisco said that if governments lowered ICT import costs it would be possible to bring services to a much larger population.

Even Switzerland has a digital divide that cuts across age, gender and social status, said the country’s Vice-President, Moritz Leuenberger. There was a growing gap in ICT literacy even in wealthy countries, Cisco added, and "some governments still don’t understand ICT"; thus more studies were needed on the correlation between ICT and economic growth.

Civil society still did not feel like a full-fledged partner, according to a representative of the Global Knowledge Partnership, adding that after Tunis, there should be an effort to involve all interested parties in all activities, including in national e-strategies and action plans. The role of civil society was still unclear, said the Tunisian Organization of Young Doctors without Borders, but if it was to be involved in implementation it should form regional alliances, since national non-governmental organizations did not have that capacity.

Governments can foster ICT entrepreneurship by supporting small-and medium-size enterprises, protecting information property rights and making their citizens ICT-literate, speakers said this morning at a panel discussion on "Business view on critical information society issues" organized by the International Chamber of Commerce’s Coordinating Committee of Business Interlocutors (www.businessatwsis.net/).