Highway Africa News Agency (Grahamstown)
Brenda Zulu
24 August 2005
The biggest SANGONeT information communication technology (ICT) discussion forum with Civil Society Organisations of South Africa have started in Cape Town with an opportunity for the general public to learn about the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).
David Barnard, Executive Director of SANGONet called on the participants to raise questions and make an input as the recommendations will be presented to the second phase of the WSIS in Tunisia.
"This is the final opportunity for the South African Civil society to come up with a statement," said Barnard.
He called on all those who are not aware of ICT issues to learn and those who are aware to share their experiences.
This discussion is part of the annual Community Informatics Research Networks (CIRN) conference as well as the WSIS Civil Society colloquium which will be held from 22 to 26 August 2005 in Cape Town.
These conferences will form part of the core activities planned for the Information Society Week (ISW), an initiative of Provincial Government of the Western Cape (Centre for e-Innovation), in partnership with the City of Cape town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the National Department of Communications.
The theme "Building partnerships for the information society" is focused on ensuring that the pervasiveness of technology in our society does not breed further inequality but address issues such as community engagement, successful service delivery, e government and governance and conflict resolution through the use of appropriate and affordable information and telecommunication technologies.
ISW will be the first in a series of annual events to show citizens what the information society, e-services and e- products are all about, and why it is important for the socio-economic transformation, says Dr Harold Wesso, Head: Centre for e- innovation, Provincial Government Western Cape.
He called on the participants to apply their knowledge and become innovative with a passion to apply it. "The information society is not about knowledge it is about doing things differently with the knowledge that one has. We have to understand the issues and have to be out their in the community to apply what we know," said Dr Wesso.
He however observed that to build an information society was hard work.
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