[WSIS CS-Plenary] News from Funredes

[Daniel Pimienta]

NEWS FROM NETWORKS & DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (FUNREDES)
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FUNREDES has become a member of the Association for the Progress of
Communications (APC - http://apc.org), an international network of
organizations of the civil society dedicated to the empowerment and
the support to groups and individuals through the strategic use of ICTs.
See http://funredes.org/english/institucion/convenios.php3/docid/472.

This new membership happens at the moment when FUNREDES is transformed
into a study, consulting and education group ("Think-Tank").

The new orientation of FUNREDES is to give priority to the transfer
of its knowledge and experiences to the field, in all the forms,
above the coordination of projects, which has made us busy in the last
18 years untiringly (REDALC, MULBRI, TELESINERGIA, CARIBCAD, MISTICA/OLISTICA,
CARIBTIC/CARDICIS, BOHIO, SOCINFODO...).

The intention is to continue with the action-research approach which we
trust to be appropriate for development; however, we want to leave
more space to research and study while we help and accompany other
institutions and people to lead the necessary projects.
In this context, Funredes is looking for alliance in the academic world.

The main subjects of the Funredes Think-Tank are:
- the linguistic and cultural diversity in Information Society
(we are members of the World Network of Linguistic Diversity
http://www.icvolunteers.org/index.php?what=pub&id=413 and our work in
http://funredes.org/lc and http://funredes.org/tradauto follows with
force),
- the ethics of information and online participative democracy
(we want to formalize our association with the network of ICIE
http://icie.zkm.de/),
- the multistakeholder participation and approaches,
(we will try to be active in the "Global Alliance ICT for Policy
and Development" - http://www.un-gaid.org/),
- the social impact of ICT, its evaluation and indicators
(we continue accompanying the Transition Team of http://funredes.org/mistica),
- the management of virtual communities and the collaboration
(we continue pushing http://redistic.org and we are sure that membership
in http://apc.org will strengthen and extend our eagerness of collaboration
in the civil society),
- the new paradigm of international cooperation (we are member of the Council
of the Foundation of the Digital Solidarity Fund http://dsf-fsn.org),
- the digital dividend and the relation between human development and ICT4D
(see our graphic product in
http://funredes.org/english/publicaciones/index.php3/docid/469).

Obviously Funredes Think Tank will maintain a social and technological
watch on ICT4D matters (we are member of http://www.constellationw.com/)
and we are opening alliances with the academic world.

A little closer,

Daniel Pimienta
For the Board of Directors,

PS: During all those years, you have always known us overloaded
by project coordination and with little availability for actions
outside our projects, although we always arranged to offer our share
in solidarity.

This has changed radically by the same design of a reorganization wich
has released our time for study.

So feel free and trusty to consult us for any related activity
(such as formulation and evaluation of projects, diagnostics,
counceling...)! Now we are available for it.

And solidarity keeps up...