WSIS Forum 2018

The WSIS Forum 2018 is in one week! Are you ready?

The Forum will be hosted by ITU and will take place at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. ITU issued badges will be required to enter the ITU and CICG buildings. Practical information about the Forum, Geneva, ITU, accomodation, and badging is available here.

Agenda

The Agenda and Programme for the WSIS Forum 2018 is built on the basis of official submissions received during the Open Consultation Process on the Thematic Aspects and Innovations on the Format of the WSIS Forum 2018.

A Draft Agenda is now available here

Please note the Agenda will be regularly updated.

The interactive Agenda will be available soon. You will be able to search in an intuitive way the sessions during the WSIS Forum. You will find sessions by name, Action Lines, SDGs and get a detailed view of each Session.

For additional information please visit the Agenda

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Registration

It is time to register for WSIS Forum 2018 !
This is your last month for registration to the WSIS Forum 2018. Registration is necessary for all WSIS Stakeholders intending to participate in the Forum this month.

Registration is available here.

For additional information please visit the Registration

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imeetyouatWSISForum

As a special feature for registered participants, an online community and networking platform has been created as an extension of WSIS Forum 2018 to help you meet other registered participants, start conversations, interact with scheduled speakers and build your personalized schedule of sessions.

*NOTE: imeetyouatWSISForum is only available for registered on-site participants! If you have not yet registered for the WSIS Forum 2018 please visit the registration page for details on how to register.

For additional information please visit the imeetyouatWSISForum

High-level Track

The Chairman Designate for High-Level Track is:
H.E Eng. Majed Sultan Al Mesmar
Deputy Director General, Telecommunication Sector, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA),
United Arab Emirates

High-Level Track Facilitators (HLTFs) will facilitate the High-Level Policy Sessions on the 20th and 21th of March as part of the High-Level Track of the WSIS Forum 2018. The policy sessions will be grouped around different themes identified as important by the WSIS Stakeholder community during the open consultation process.

The High-Level Track Facilitators list is here.

The high-level track will consist of the opening segment, high-level policy sessions, ministerial round table, and a high-level networking programme. Policy statements will be delivered during the high-level policy sessions by high-ranking officials of the WSIS Stakeholder community, representing Government, Private Sector, Civil Society, Academia and International Organizations.

You can find the High-Level participants by clicking here.

For additional information please visit High-level Track

WSIS Prizes 2018 Champions

WSIS Prizes 2018 Champions

ITU announced 90 Champions of the prestigious WSIS Prizes contest while the 18 Winners, out of these 90 Champions, will be recognized at a ceremony at Geneva International Conference Centre on 20th of March, as part of the annual WSIS Forum 2018 (19 - 23 March).

The submission phase which began from 11 September 2017 to 10 January 2018 received a record number of 685 project submissions, out of which 492 exceptional projects were nominated for WSIS Prizes 2018. Close to a million online votes were cast from 29 January till 18 February 2018 for these projects and following a comprehensive review by the Expert Group lead to the selection of 90 extraordinary ICT-related projects and initiatives for the seventh edition of the WSIS Prize contest.

The 90 champions are announced online here!

For additional information please visit the WSIS Prizes website.

WSIS Forum 2018 Partners

The WSIS Forum 2018 is supported by the following countries and organizations. The WSIS Forum appreciates their active efforts to ensure that the World's largest annual multi-stakeholder summit dedicated to ICTs as a force for good, WSIS Forum, continues to grow.

• Strategic Partner Platinium: United Arab Emirates
  
  
• Strategic Partner Gold: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  
  
• Partners for specific activities: Japan, Republic of Rwanda, Confederation of Switzerland, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE)
  
  
• Contributing Partners: Oman, Republic of Poland, ICANN, Internet Society
  
  
• Supporting Partners: International Federation for Information Processing, The International Network of Women Engineers & Scientists (INWES)
  
  

For additional information please visit Partners

Exhibition

WSIS Forum 2018 has gathered more than 30 exhibitors from Civil Society, Academia, International Organizations, Private Sector, and Governments. The exhibition set the pivotal stage to encourage all stakeholders to share their initiatives for a more effective Information Society. Exhibitors have prepared a number of ground-breaking and innovative projects, including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and autonomous robots, as potential solutions to specific issues that will advance the achievement of the SDGs.

Below is the list of the thematic topics of this year's exhibition:

• WSIS Action Lines and SDGs
• VR & Education
• E-Business
• E-griculture
• ICTs & Health
• Development through crowdfunding
• Information Accessibility
• Social network and entrepreneurship
• Internet of Things (IoT) for development
• Mobile remote presence devices (MRPs)
• Emerging legal principles in the regulation of cyber security

For additional information please visit Exhibiton

Hackathon: Result of regional ones

#HackAgainstHunger / Caribbean Hackathon Result

On February 17th & 18th 2018, the Department of Computing and Information Technology at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, through its AgriNeTT project, organized the #HackAgainstHunger/Caribbean Hackathon in partnership with:

• The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
  
  
• The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
  
  
• The Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Organization (CARDI)

Winner: Team "Swiss Cheese". Their solution focused on reducing food losses and provided a dashboard of features related to sale of produce (virtual market place).

Second: "Root Cause", was very close in score. Their solution, called Sea Suite, centered on fish and the livelihoods of fishermen. Sea Suite consists of 3 applications on one open data platform.

#HackAgainstHunger / Kigali Hackathon Result
On February 16th & 17th 2018.

Winner: Kiza Solution. Their solution focused on ensuring food security and end hunger. It has useful features like climate monitoring and forcecasting, food chain monitoring, predicitiv analytics for crops.

For additional information please visit Hackathon

Youth for SDGs

The youth special thematic workshops will provide participants from 18 to 35 years old the necessary tools and insights about ICTs for development projects, vision and challenges currently faced by WSIS multi-stakeholder scenarios that will encourage them to pursue different paths to achieve the sustainable development goals in a future by implementing innovative solutions through new technologies. Information and knowledge is the key that the WSIS Forum aims to provide them by potential networks and easy engagement to the different activities proposed.

Thematic workshops

• VLOGGERS FOR SDGs: An interactive session where Youth all over the world will discuss the importance and the impact of video to report and show the progress, the challenges and the opportunities for development in the coverage on the main WSIS action lines matching the sustainable development goals
  
  
• KIWI CAMPUS: Workshop on smart cities robots design for everybody.
  
  
• GIMUN 1: Bringing together young representation from every sector in order to address the question of how greater access to ICTs can improve the situation for youth, especially with regard to youth employment and economic growth.
  
  
• GIMUN 2: Address the issues identified by women involved in ICT-related experiences in order to empower the participation of women in this field.
  
  
• CLOUD Cafe: Discuss the main issues in the identified topics for youth within the WSIS framework to encourage an active contribution and participation to the WSIS Process. 2 hour dynamic space where experts representing one topic will be available to have a brief debate with each participant for 10 minutes, where they can provide knowledge, share their experience, and solve questions.
  
  

For additional information please visit Youth for SDGs

Follow and communicate with the WSIS Process