Note to Correspondents

SEMINAR ON POLICY AWARENESS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, 27 MARCH

The first high-level seminar of 2003 on “Policy Awareness and Security Issues on Information Technology” will be held on Thursday, 27 March, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Chamber of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).  Organized by the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Task Force and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), this event will mark the official launch of the programme series this year.

The seminar is part of the series on “Policy Awareness and Training in Information Technology”, carried out with the participation and sponsorship of Intel Corporation.  The series, targeted at the senior and mid-level delegates from United Nations Permanent Missions in New York, consists of a set of four progressive modules and one seminar presented as a cycle, which will be repeated five times this year.

The first four modules, focusing on computers and software, e-mail and web surfing, web-page design and maintenance, are geared toward all diplomats.  The fifth module in each cycle, conducted as an interactive seminar, is aimed essentially at ambassadors and senior diplomats. 

Speakers at the seminar will include Gert Rosenthal, the President of ECOSOC; Gillian Sorensen, the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations; José Maria Figueres Olsen, the Chairman of the United Nations ICT Task Force; and Bob F. Jalang’o, the Permanent Representative of Kenya and the Chairman of the United Nations Working Group on Informatics.

Ethan Zuckerman and Geoffrey Kirkman, of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School,will address the topic of national strategies and policy frameworks for facilitating the development of ICT.  Sriram Viswanathan and Julie Coppernoll of Intel Corporation will address the issue of alternative technologies for development.  Ambassador Ahmad Kamal will chair the seminar.     

In the current environment, diplomats and decision-makers are not only required to master the use of information technology in their daily work, but also to be aware of, and address, new challenges.  Close to 100 diplomats, almost half of them ambassadors and ministers, have completed this series of seminars, with visible enthusiasm and satisfaction.  Their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

For more information, please contact Enrica Murmura at the Secretariat of the United Nations ICT Task Force, tel.: (212) 963 5913, e-mail:  murmura@un.org, or Humaira Kamal, Special Fellow, UNITAR, tel.:  (480) 361 3672, e-mail:  hkamal@un.org.

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