Conference Overview
Presentations
GK 97 Overview
In addition to exploring the key themes of understanding, sharing and partnership building, participants addressed a range of specific development challenges clustered in seven conference tracks:
1. Empowering the Poor with Information and Knowledge
What special challenges and opportunities does the information revolution pose for the world's poor and for developing countries more generally? What are the strategies, tools, partnerships and lessons of experience that developing countries can draw on in trying to assure access and equity for all, in building opportunities for individuals and communities through the use of knowledge and information? What are the success stories and best practices in using information and knowledge to build opportunity for the poor?
2. Policy and Regulatory Frameworks for the Information Economy
What are the policy and regulatory frameworks that encourage the growth of the information economy, foster the growth of learning organizations in both the public and private sectors, build knowledge capital, and encourage private-sector investment in information infrastructure?
3. Harnessing Information and Knowledge: Infrastructure, Capacity Building and Applications
How can developing countries build and sustain the infrastructure, institutions, and patterns of interaction that enable organizations, communities and nations to build and share knowledge? How can
they mobilize appropriate technologies and knowledge strategies in a sustainable manner to assure universal access to information and knowledge and to meet specific development challenges?
4. Fostering Science and Technology in Developing Countries
What role do science and technology play in fostering sustainable development? How can one build sustainable capacity for science and technology, create an environment that fosters research and innovation, and balance fundamental and applied aspects of science and technology in a way that builds a solid foundation for a country's knowledge capital, innovation and economic growth, while at the same time assuring openness and access to global innovation in science and technology? What is the role of non-governmental partners in this effort, and how can one build effective and sustainable partnerships to foster science and technology?
5. Public Information, Civic Dialogue and Effective Governance
New information technologies create unprecedented opportunities for sharing information, fostering dialogue, and providing public officials -- and individuals and communities -- with tools for effective governance. They can help to create a "public space" where disparate communities of interest coalesce around a national conversation on shared objectives. Yet they also raise fundamental questions about the role of and access to information, about the responsibility of the media, about governance and civic dialogue.
6. Life-long Learning and Distance Education
The information economy makes possible, and necessary, life-long learning, as individuals and communities must continually adapt to changing circumstances and opportunities brought about by economic and social change and technological innovation. New technologies also open new horizons for distance learning, for sharing knowledge globally and for learner-oriented and customized approaches to learning.
7. Partnerships
Partnerships are a vital element of any comprehensive strategy to enhance the knowledge and information resources of developing countries. In an era when private capital flows far outstrip official aid flows and the greatest innovations in harnessing and using knowledge come from the private and non-profit sectors, the development community must actively seek to build and participate in new public-private partnerships to support knowledge for development.
Cyber-cafes The Toronto conference also featured cyber-cafes, video-conference links with sites around the globe, and a "Knowledge and Technology Forum" highlighting innovations in the private, non-profit and public sectors using technology to address specific development challenges
