Background

This is a special "public forum" on the occasion of the fifth annual
State of the World Forum in San Francisco. The panel will be principally
focused on how new global communications systems are allowing people
world wide to participate in global problem solving
and human development projects.

Every year the World Forum gathers luminaries and leaders from
around the world at the Fairmont Hotel for a week to develop and examine
systemic solutions that impact business, politics and human development
into the next millennium. Each year it creates a special "public forum" to
address key issues, developments and trends. This year the theme of
the public forum is "Creating a Culture of Peace for the 21st Century".
It will be held at the 900 seat Herbst Theater next to SF's City Hall, the
site of the UN Charter signing in 1945. There will be two separate
panels this evening, one on the Internet and human development
and one on nuclear disarmament.

The panel "A Conversation on the Internet and Global
Communications - New Opportunities for Education and Collaboration
for Human Development", will bring together five unique leaders who
will describe projects they are involved with using new communications
technologies to bridge the digital divide in our world. As our world
reaches 6 billion citizens fully 50% of it's people have never made
or received a phone call. Many are trapped in poverty and
underdevelopment with little hope for change without the
basic education, heath care information and exercise human
rights that simple communications systems can provide. This
panel will reveal how people from all parts of our global village are
joining together using appropriate technologies and best
development practices to eliminate the worst situations of
poverty, isolation and illiteracy.

A special focus of this panel is to discuss the NetAid project.
Cisco Systems and the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) have deployed the largest scale Internet technology and
the most integrated combination of media ever used to promote
social change as part of NetAid, a long term initiative to help end
the growing problems of extreme poverty around the world.
Diane Merrick, Cisco Systems Senior Manager of Communications
and Net Aid Project Manager will discuss the origin and long term
goals of this unprecedented and historic international effort
( www.netaid.org ). Dr. Richard Jolly, Coordinator of the Annual
UNDP Human Development Report and Special Advisor to the UNDP
Administrator will give his perspective as one of the most senior
and experienced UN professionals involved with bringing successful,
cost effective development strategies to the worlds attention and
mobilizing public and institutional support for them. Dr. Jolly, who
served for many years as Deputy Director of UNICEF, is an expert at
employing global information systems in the service of the worlds poor.

Touraj Rahimi, President of Schools Online, will discuss how the
Internet technology can bring a new dimension to education in
developing countries. Schools Online, in a strategic partnership with
World Links for Development (WorLD) and I*EARN, is addressing the
inequity of Internet access in developing countries and provides
education opportunities for more students around the world. In its pilot
year, the Alliance for Global Learning is building computer capacity and
bringing Internet connectivity to schools in nine countries in Africa,
Latin America, and the Middle East. The Alliance goes beyond just
providing technology resources; it also promotes teacher development
and curriculum integration that is necessary to bring students in
developing countries online and into the global community. Ultimately,
students are provided with communication tools to collaborate on
innovative educational projects with their own communities and with
the rest of the world.

Barbara Marx Hubbard, Futurist, Author and
President of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution
will discuss the trend of the Internet enabling people to participate
in social potential movements to promote positive change and
evolution as we grow toward a global society.

This event will be videotaped for a potential future television
broadcast and converted to streaming content on the web. A
special "Meet and Greet" reception will immediately follow the forum
and will allow people to personally interact with the panelist and
the many celebrities and officials who are supporting the forum.

This public forum which will take place just 6 days before the
star-studded international NetAid concerts in New York, London and
Geneva set for October 9th. This global media event on the eve of
the millennium, will harness will harness the tools of modern
information technology and the Web to elicit direct, meaningful global
responses to poverty, and heighten the consciousness of people
everywhere about its roots and consequences. It will be a dramatic
demonstration of how our new global communications systems are
providing a means to mobilize the planet towards the eradication of
extreme poverty in our lifetime. This unique public forum in
San Francisco will play an important role in bringing key leaders
together to tell the story behind these important opportunities
for human development.

 

Return to Home Page Index