APEC SEMINAR ON USING ICT FOR RURAL CAPACITY BUILDING
Session 1: Global Initiatives and Technologies on ICT Capacity-Building
for Rural Communities: Global Best Practices on ICT Capacity-Building Activities for Rural Communities
Speaker Guidelines
Following the Declaration of the APEC Economic Leaders made in 2006 to build stronger societies and a more dynamic and harmonious community where the significance of information and communication technology (ICT) for APECs development was affirmed, the APEC Seminar on Using ICT for Rural Community Capacity Building aims to create a venue for APEC member-economies to discuss concepts and share current practices, methods, and experiences in implementing projects related to using ICT for capacity building of rural communities.
Through the Seminar, lessons and recommendations will be gathered to serve as inputs to a possible draft of a strategy and list of priority action areas for regional collaboration on the use of ICT in capacity-building of rural communities. It will also allow the formation of an initial network of experts, collaborators, and practitioners. This Project also complements the Telecommunications and Information Working Groups (TEL) commitment to implement concrete mechanisms that would achieve the creation of an Asia Pacific Information Society.
The seminar presentations will be divided into two main sessions. The first session will be about Global Initiatives and Technologies on ICT Capacity-Building for Rural Communities. The second session will be a series of country presentations on what APEC economies have done on ICT capacity building in the local level.
Presentation Framework. An expert speaker will be invited to make a presentation for the first session, specifically about Global Best Practices on ICT Capacity-Building Activities for Rural Communities. The second session will be a series of country presentations on what APEC economies have done on ICT capacity building in the local level.
A. Presentation Topics: The following topics should be tackled during the presentation:
1. Major global trends on ICT Capacity-Building Activities for Rural Communities.
2. Two or three examples of best practices on ICT Capacity-Building Activities for Rural Communities
B. Other considerations: The issues of the role of women and the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are important to APEC. It is therefore encouraged that presentations illustrate how these initiatives have contributed to the development of the role of women in rural communities and/or SMEs.
Presentation Proposal Submission for APEC/TEL
Global Best Practices on
ICT Capacity-Building Activities for Rural Communities
Lone Eagle Consulting specializes in rural, remote, and indigenous Internet learning with emphasis on fast-track training for rural ecommerce and telework strategies. Lone Eagle online curriculum and community action strategies were developed for a national rural ecommerce demonstration project, 2003-2006. The "Montana Choice" project gave rural citizens opportunities to understand and engage global market access opportunities. (http://lone-eagles.com/future-proofing.htm
Most recently, a regional rural community development project has begun in Wyoming http://lone-eagles.com/wyomingrcdproject.htm This project is inspired by a rural Wyoming project where rural citizens are using fiber optics to teach English to Asians, a $100 billion a year market, using Skype.com for free 2-way video conferencing. The company, based in a town of population 350, Eleutian www.eleutian.com , projects training 20,000 rural teleworkers over the next four years. http://lone-eagles.com/ruralteleworkers.htm The opportunity exists to teach International CEO's English as well as Americanism and how to do business with American small businesses - which represent over 86% of all new jobs, using a similar model. Matching remote home agents with companies seeking 40% savings is a service modeled at www.contractxchange.com Cell phones are anticipated to be THE distance learning tool to be used by billions to enter the ONE Global economy as detailed at
http://www.oerderves.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/a-review-of-the-open-educational-resources-oer-movement_final.pdf
In short, global peace and security may depend on including everyone as part of the global supply chain to remove the economic disparities as the basis for violent conflict. Creating a global culture of tolerance and recognition that we are all one human family has become one of the key transnational collaboration challenges for us all.
Lone Eagle Consulting co-facilitated the first meeting of the Indigenous ICT Commission of the Americans, March 2007. http://www.iccta-citca.org/ENG/home.html
Resume and Biographies for Frank Odasz http://lone-eagles.com/articles/frank.htm
The following introduction is from www.apectel37.jp
Welcome
Mr. MORI Kiyoshi
Vice-Minister for Policy Coordination,
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of JapanLet me begin by extending my deepest appreciation for our being able to hold the 37th meeting of the APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group (APEC TEL 37) in Tokyo, and it is my great pleasure to invite all of our friends to this meeting.
I am very aware that these APEC TEL meetings have contributed significantly to fostering developments in APEC member economies regarding liberalization in the areas of telecommunications, dissimilation and facilitation of broadband, and resolution of security issues and the digital divide through our close mutual coalition and cooperation.
For ensuring further trade liberalization and an improved fair competition environment within the region, we all recognize that these TEL meetings will continue to play an ever more important role in the future as well.
Additionally, as you may know, the 7th APEC Ministerial Meeting on Telecommunications and Information Industry (TELMIN 7) will be held next April in Thailand. This TEL 37 is therefore our last meeting before TELMIN 7 and is of tremendous significance in aggregating our experiences with a wide range of activities and in defining our future direction.
As the hosting economy, Japan will make every effort to meet the expectations for this meeting and fulfill our role. In our endeavor, we welcome your earnest cooperation.
Turning to Japan's recent efforts, with the world's cheapest high-speed broadband environment, Japan has become one of the most advanced countries now promoting the transition to FTTH. Also, many mobile phone subscribers having some 100 million terminals are now using advanced mobile Internet services through 3G technologies. In addition, full digitization of terrestrial TV broadcasting will be completed in July 2011, and progress in the convergence of communication and broadcasting is being extensively promoted. During TEL 37, I expect that introducing our experience in broad areas supportive of telecommunications including promoting FTTH investment through implementing competition policy will generate active discussion among member economies.
Yet it is important to note that development of broadband and IP networks is raising new challenges for us. Prominent among these challenges are closing the digital divide, ensuring information security, and discussing the concept of the universal service system in the IP era. Toward resolving these issues, Japan has, for instance, adopted a national strategy to make broadband service available throughout the country by 2010, but there remain many shared urgent challenges including how best to balance development of infrastructure within the region. For realizing the vision of the Asia and Pacific Information Society (APIS), Japan very much welcomes opportunities to cooperate with respective economies, and expects that discussion regarding our common challenges will proceed further in the near future.
At the coming APEC TEL Tokyo Meeting, to introduce the newest cutting-edge technologies which are essential for realizing the ubiquitous network society in the near future, besides the related seminars and workshops set out in the schedule, we will also organize technical visits including exhibits and showrooms featuring the next-generation IP network, next-generation wireless network, and digital broadcasting. I would thus be quite pleased if our visitors were to enjoy and directly experience these latest technology and service advances.
Notably as well, the APEC TEL 37 Tokyo Meeting will be held in late March, which is the time when the cherry trees, one of our most prized national flowers, come into full bloom, and is described as Japan's most beautiful season. During APEC TEL 37, I thus hope that all of our visitors will come and enjoy Tokyo through experiencing Japan's uniquely fascinating climate, history, and culture.
I most warmly invite you all to the meeting and look forward to welcoming you to Tokyo soon!