TechPlus+ | Technology & Development Redux

  • SDNP Malawi

    Malawi SDNP Meeting with Azusa Kuwota, PO Malawi CO. The future of SDNP is at stake and after 7 years of supporting the programme the CO is eager to make it an independent entity. For this purpose, a national consultant was recruited earlier this year to assess the situation and issue recommendations. The consultant was…

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  • Dominican Republic BTOR

    Back to Office Report Mission to Dominican Republic 21-25 April 2003 Garry Garriott, SURF Panam�, and I visited the country at the request of the CO who recently signed an MoU with INDOTEL, the Dominican telecom regulator. The main purpose of the mission was to kick start the process for the elaboration and finalisation of…

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  • Dominican Republic

    This was my first time back in Santo Domingo since 1999. I must admit the city has changed quite a bit. The first thing one notices is the development of physical infrastructure, buildings and roads specially. The long and beautiful ride from the airport to Santo Domingo has now been transformed into a 6 lane…

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  • TTF Working Group Meeting

    BDP organised a TTF manager discussion to address the issues that have emerged regarding the management and allocation processes for TTFs. The first item for discussion was the presentation of the TTF report to the EB in the summer. BRSP informed us that a special session of the EB will be held in September to…

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  • Meeting with UNF – Conectas Project

    I met with Malak Poppovic (UNF Senior Advisor, Sao Paolo) and Lena Sinha (BRSP) to discuss the above project and identify potential for collaboration. Conectas (http://www.conectas.org) is a non-gov, non-profit network working on human rights on a global scale. One of their priorities is to use of ICT to enhance collaboration and information exchange (I…

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  • OSS Follow-up IDRC/Bellanet

    I spoke to Mark Faul from Bellanet on the above. We agreed to: – organise a conference call next week with UNESCO, UNDP, USAID & Bellanet to see if we can coordinate our efforts. – support the workshops in Peru (August), Paris (November) and others is available – discuss the Open Source Resource Centres in…

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  • Bridge-IT Global Support Team meeting in DC

    Nokia, IYF, Pearson and UNDP held its quarterly meeting on 4 April. The meeting concentrated on 3 central isssues: International launching for Philippines pilot in May; discussion on the guidelines for visual representation of the partnership including use of logos; set up of conditions for pilot scalability and replicability at the country level. The launch…

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  • Meetings with WB/DGF in DC

    Yesterday afternoon I visited he offices of the DG at the WB. I met with Sid Kane to introduce me to gateway stuff. I also met Carlos Braga and Robert Valentin. The meeting with Carlos centred on OS. The WB is agnostic about OS but will advice governments on the advantages/disadvantages of OS if requested…

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  • Visit to Microsoft

    Bruce Jenks, Stephen Browne, Sarah McCue and I traveled to Seattle to discuss with MS a potential partnership on e-learning and related initiatives. The meeting took place on Friday, 21 March 2003. Here are my notes. MS key ideas and issues – MS has rallied three parts of the company to work along the lines…

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  • 2nd Open Source Conference in DC

    Atsushi and I attended the conference which went from 17th to 19 March. The focus of this one was on OSS efforts in the US, Europe and Japan. We made several contracts, including: – UNESCO: possible collaboration on OS, have a keen interest. A regional OS workshop in Perú is being planned by their regional…

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  • UN ICT Task Force Meeting

    Stephen, Radhika and I met with Sarbuland Khan and Sergey Kambalov to discuss a) ICTD Strategies workshop and b) follow-up to high level meeting of this morning with the UN on WSIS The TF expressed interest in supporting the proposed workshop in Mozambique and agreed in principle to fund part of it. They have 60k…

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  • Information Disclosure Panel meeting

    Yesterday, I attended the first formal meeting of the Information Disclosure Oversight Panel which is being supported by BRSP/Civil Society unit. The information disclosure policy of UNDP was approved by the EB back in 1997, after extensive discussions and reviews both within UNDP and external partners. The document is buried somewhere deep in the UNDP…

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  • Bangladesh Mission

    Great trip to Bangladesh. We have an SDNP project with great potential and lots of resrouces. The Staff is top notch too and support from the host institution is rock solid. The report spells out the recommendations I am making which in a nutshell call for a refocusing on more development oriented (less techie) pilots…

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  • Bridge-IT/Nokia Partnership meeting

    The Global Support Team (GST) of the Bridge-IT partnership (Nokia, IYF, Pearson and UNDP) held its 5th formal meeting at the offices of Pearson in New York City. The core of the meeting dealt with issues related to the ongoing pilot and the upcoming formal launching of the initiative that will take place in Manila…

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  • Irish Aid Meeting

    Today, Stephen, Sarah and myself met with an Irish Aid delegation which included Mr. Tom Hanney- Director, Multilateral UN Policy, Ms. Dympna Hayes Deputy Director, Multilateral UN Policy, and Ms. Joana Betson, First Secretary. Mission of Ireland to the UN. The delegation had great interest in hearing from UNDP about the relevance of ICT into…

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