For those of us in Africa: Academic Retreat on the information society The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in partnership with the Ford Foundation, is organizing a two-day retreat on the theme "Intellectual Leadership and the African Information Society Initiative: What Role for Africa's Academic Community?" to assist the African academic community advocate for and define a role in the emerging information society on the continent. The retreat, scheduled for June 14-16 in Addis Ababa is part of ECA's efforts to engage with key stakeholders in building an information society and solicit their input for the preparatory process of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Geneva in December this year and in Tunisia in 2005. Under the framework of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), ECA considers the higher education community as the intellectual backbone that can lead Africa into the digital age and sustain it, according to a statement from the Commission's Development Information Services Division (DISD). "Although the use of ICTs had been spearheaded by many higher education institutions in Africa for over ten years, it is clear that momentum has dropped since then," says Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, the Director of DISD. Through the retreat, says Ms. Bounemra Ben Soltane, ECA is hoping that these institutions can recapture the intellectual leadership needed for developing the information society in Africa. The retreat is also part of a series of Ford Foundation-sponsored activities underlining the importance of 'visioning' or 'imagining' various aspects of the role of the African university of the future. It is supported through the Foundation's Higher Education in Africa Project. For more information, please contact Aida Opoku-Mensah, ICT Team Leader, DISD, at [log in to unmask] The related websites: Online Discussion on the African Academia and the Information Society: http://www.dgroups.org/groups/aisi-academia-l African Information Society Initiative (AISI): http://www.uneca.org/aisi/ The Ford Foundation: http://www.fordfound.org/ The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS): http://www.itu.int/wsis/ --- You are currently subscribed to picta-cl as: [[log in to unmask]] To unsubscribe, forward this message to [log in to unmask]