STATEMENT BY MR. HANS VAN GINKEL, RECTOR OF THE
UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY
UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS
An Information Society Open to All
(DRAFT - check against delivery)
The World Summit on the Information Society has stretched
over more than two years from its major Geneva meeting in 2003, to the Tunis
meeting which is being held from 16-18 November 2005. The real challenge the
Tunis phase will have to address is to find ways to create an Information
Society truly open to all; so that the benefits can be shared by all
humanity. This is a task of Promethean proportions.
There have been extensive and highly politicized
discussions within the framework of this Summit and we have worked hard to
define the kind of Information Society we want. At times we have disagreed
bitterly but there has also been much progress. We have had to deal with
many contentious issues including the digital divide, Internet governance
and Internet security. I am not sure we have found the answers many hoped
for.
Now we find ourselves in Tunis working together to spread
some good news across the world about the benefits that the Information
Society could bring. From the perspective of my institution, the United
Nations University, our message is that we need an"Information Society
Open to All." Hence, this Summit should not be about who has the power
to decide what, when and where. We have had plenty of them over the past few
decades. Rather, it should be a Summit that focuses on how. How to
spread the opportunities associated with the Information Society to the most
disadvantaged in the world. How we can use the Information Society to
help share the knowledge we need desperately to solve the world’s pressing
problems.
Our message is simple. We don't need to make major
changes in order to achieve these goals. In fact, the best way forward from
here may only require that we open things up.
Let me give some examples. The UNU is investigating the
benefits associated with the use of open source software in terms of
stimulating innovation and in improving commercial software. Open source
does not always mean "free" but it does represent an important opportunity
for institutions in the developing world to find cost effective solutions in
many areas like e-governance, e-health, online learning and so on.
With respect to e-governance, it is interesting to note
that some of the most innovative applications of ICTs in government are
emerging from the developing world. At the UNU Institute for Software
Technology in Macao we are building a knowledge network for Electronic
Governance - UNeGov.net - to share such experiences throughout the
developing world. This initiative will bring together various stakeholders
from government, civil society, academia and industry within a framework of
a community of practice, to develop, share, and apply concrete solutions for
e-Governance. Particular attention will be paid to the various kinds of
challenges, such as legislative, budgetary, organizational and technical,
faced by developing countries. In addition to providing a community portal,
UNeGov.net is organizing a series of workshops and an annual conference on
the "Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance." The first workshop will
take place here at WSIS.
Moreover, it is my view that we really need to build a
global community of open source developers. As such, UNU-IIST has begun the
Global Desktop Project to help build this community, with the goal of
empowering developing countries to become not only competent consumers of
the information society but also important producers. Related to this, the
UNU Institute for New Technologies and MERIT in Maastricht are involved in a
project called WorldFLOSS dealing with Free/Libre Open Source Software.
The UNU would argue that cases already exist of local
companies, academics, and even teenagers from developing countries making
major contributions to open software used around the world. This is one area
where developing counties can have immediate access and acceptance as
partners in technology at the global level. We really ought to have been
more outspoken during the Summit about the importance of this area of
software development. We should celebrate it rather than denigrate it. For
our part, the UNU is going to work even harder to promote open source
software in the future and we are planning an international conference on
software technology here in Tunis next year November.
Another area where we could have been more forthcoming is
in relation to open educational resources, also called open courseware and
open content. The improvements to the existing copyright and intellectual
property right regimes associated with this new movement for open
educational resources are exciting and worthy of more extensive support. The
UNU has been collaborating with MIT OpenCourseWare, the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation and others to try to raise the profile of open
educational resources in the WSIS process. This movement is here to stay and
if supported more extensively could bring major benefits for educational
institutions, particularly those in the developing world. We are really
talking about new forms of knowledge sharing in many fundamentally important
fields like health, science, the environment, energy and engineering, to
name but a few.
Realistically, open source software and open educational
resources alone will not take us far enough, fast enough. We need
infrastructure, affordable technologies and technical skills in the
developing world. On the former, the UNU is collaborating with the ITU and
CERN to promote the idea of an African University Network (AFUNET) to
enhance online connectivity for tertiary educational institutions on the
continent, perhaps under the auspices of the Association of African
Universities. It is well recognized that universities in other parts of the
world have been the springboards for the development of the Internet – and
facilitating the development of Africa’s Internet infrastructure is
essential for research and education in many crucial areas such as malaria
and aids. We are also working with universities in Asia and the Pacific to
try to open up the existing broadband networks that are currently only
available for rather narrow client groups. Sometimes it is not necessary to
build new networks, all we need to do is open up the existing ones a bit
more.
Yet, we need to reach out beyond the universities, and
that is why I admire so much the proposal from Nicholas Negroponte for the
"One child, one laptop" initiative that would bring down the prices of
mass-produced computers to less than US$100. We invited Professor Negroponte
to Tokyo in May 2005 when we co-organized the Ubiquitous Network Society
thematic meeting with the ITU and the Government of Japan. At that meeting,
many delegates commented on the practical and action oriented approach
proposed by Professor Negroponte and the need for many more initiatives like
that. I am delighted to see that he is here in Tunis with a prototype in
hand.
The last issue is somewhat complex – that is technical
training. Since its establishment thirty years ago, the UNU has provided
over 2,500 fellowships and implemented thousands of training programmes
targeting young professionals in developing countries. The concern we often
find is how to keep the trained people in their countries where they are
needed. In this modern competitive world, information technology skills are
highly sought after and the "brain drain" is all too apparent.
The answer may lie in improving connectivity as rapidly
as possible so that the graduates can work in the global labour market from
their home countries. We need to promote new forms of online learning, so
that people do not necessarily need to travel to an industrialized country
to get a degree. For this reason, the UNU and its partners launched the
Global Virtual University in 2002 with support from the Government of
Norway. Our approach to online learning is to ensure that the technology is
used to enhance existing practice and face-to-face contact. Our priority is
to bring about an Information Society with a human face and to build up
local institutions, skill bases and capacities in developing countries, so
that the opportunities associated with the Information Society are spread
globally. In this way, we can envisage such a society making a significant
contribution to the attainment of all eight UN Millennium Development Goals.
We have a lot of work ahead of us and it is my hope that
many more people in Tunis and around the world will rally around the notion
of "An Information Society Open to All." Perhaps the first step is to open
our minds a little.
Thank you very much!
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