IDRC FUNDS PROJECT TO TEACH WIRELESS BUILDERS, PROGRAMMERS IN AFRICA

Plans To Educate Wi-Fi Implementers Via Organized Workshops, Documentation

Urbana, IL, July 3, 2004 - Following attendance at a European wireless conference, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) worked closely with the Association for Progressive Communications, Ecole Supérieure Multinationale des Télécommunications, and wire.less.dk, a Dutch wireless consulting company, to draft a proposal designed to educate wireless implementers in Africa. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has funded the proposal for $225,000 US over the period from July 2004 to June 2006.

CUWiN's involvement in this program is key to sharing our cutting edge technology and experience with trainers and technologists in developing African countries. A positive benefit of making this technical information available online to this target audience is that it will then be available to wireless implementers globally.

The program will be used to teach trainers in Africa how to build out wireless infrastructure and programmers adding features to existing software and those creating new software. The diverse population of Africa faces unique hurdles which this program will overcome through a variety of techniques:

-- Training: hands-on workshops in North, South, and West Africa;

-- Materials development: documentation collected and translated to
English, French, and Arabic; and

-- Distributed knowledge base: development and maintenance of the CUWiN
SourceForge development site to collect technical information of
interest to wireless implementers and programmers

Through projects such as this, the groundwork is being laid to establish lasting communities of wireless networking practitioners in Africa -- and across the world -- with a vision of holding future in-depth training sessions in greater numbers once this path-finding and the program itself are concluded.

About CUWiN

The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) has built a communications network using wireless networking equipment. This is essentially the same "WiFi" equipment used in homes and offices, but CUWiN puts it on rooftops to connect neighbors and form a high-speed community network.

CUWiN's three-part mission is to:

-- connect more people to Internet and broadband services;

-- develop open-source hardware and software for use by wireless
projects world-wide; and

-- build and support community-owned, not-for-profit broadband
networks in cities and towns around the globe.

CUWiN is a program of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. OJC Technologies is CUWiN's development home.

For additional information, contact:

Sascha Meinrath
Project Coordinator
Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network
(217)278-3933
sascha@cuwireless.net
http://www.cuwireless.net/

From 7-9 July, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) hosted a meeting in Geneva, bringing together government policy makers and regulators, representatives of Internet service providers, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies, academics, civil society organizations and others, in an effort to counter spam, a "modern day epidemic," and to standardize anti-spam legislation. At present, many countries have no such laws, making it difficult to prosecute spammers.

Robert Horton, head of Australia's Communications Authority, served as the Chairman of the meeting. According to the Chairman's report that emanated from the meeting, "unsolicited commercial communications" or so-called spam has grown into one of the major plagues affecting today's digital world. As much as 80% of all e-mail traffic is spam, compared to 35% a year ago, according to the ITU, with spammers sending hundreds of millions of messages per day. The estimated costs of spam to the global economy are approximately US$25 billion dollars per year. The problem is spreading also to cell phones. In Japan, nine out of ten junk e-mails come in the form of mobile telephone text messages.


Most speakers and participants seemed to agree that there is no "silver bullet," or consensus emerging on the right way forward, as no one solution alone will curb spam. A multi-pronged approach to solving the problem, involving all stakeholders, is clearly necessary. All actors need to engage in a concerted effort, linking the mandates and expertise of various international organizations, as well as the Internet Society, to support and progressively develop an international framework to combat the problem.

The Chairman's report states that spam is a major problem for developed countries, but perhaps is even worse for developing and least developed countries (LDCs), where, because of limited available Internet resources, many users rely on free web-based e-mail services with limits on free storage, which are particularly targeted by spammers. A number of participants highlighted that because of less effective security protection, computers on broadband networks are often compromised in order to hijack then to send spam.

In a session on multilateral and bilateral cooperation, international organizations, regional bodies, and a number of UN Member States presented a review of their initiatives to tackle spam and their views on possible future international cooperation. Acknowledging that the society and culture of each country is different, participants pointed out that it would be very difficult to employ the same anti-spam legislation everywhere. However, information sharing among different national authorities and a cooperative approach to anti-spam law enforcement were seen as fundamental.

Three initiatives were announced during the meeting in Geneva:
1) the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on mutural enforcement on commercial e-mail between enforcement agencies of Australia, the UK and the US, which will include a meeting in London in October 2004;
2) the establishment of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Task Force on spam, which is likely to hold its first meeting in Busan (South Korea) in early September 2004, in conjunction with ITU Telecom Asia and the OECD's 2nd spam workshop;
3) the holding of a special session on spam at the ITU's Global Symposium for Regulators in December 2004.



NGLS

Source: http://www.un-ngls.org/wsis-spam-report.htm

The Punjab Information Technology Department also announced that it is hiring 'world class' IT professionals to implement its e-government vision.

According to Punjab Information Technology Minister Abdul Aleem Khan, the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) will spearhead the development of a 'genuine e-government culture' through investment in infrastructure and key personnel.

At a specially-convened meeting with the Punjab Secretary for IT Saeed Alvi, the Rector of the Virtual University Naveed Malik, Dr Qaiser Durrani, Khalid Ahmad Khan of Project Management and Kaiwan Khawaja of Technologic, the IT Minister laid out his spending plans and gave the green light to a series of internal initiatives at the Information
Technology Department.

Minister Khan made it clear that the government planned to develop and modernise the IT department on modern lines for the purpose of improving internal civil service efficiency, and bringing in good governance in the practical sense. Various prospects of improving performance of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) were also discussed in the meeting.

The meeting decided to advertise the posts of Chief information Officer and Chief Technology Officer for PITB in the local and international media.

The meeting agreed to hire IT professionals of International calibre and experience, capable of promoting IT vision in the province. The minister announced that the government was encouraging local and international IT companies to set up IT Parks in the province and in this regard, special incentives would be offered to the serious
investors.

The IT Minister also encouraged the public to share their ideas and recommendations with the Government through the Punjab Government Portal Service.

Source:http://www.pstm.net/article/index.php?articleid=192