UN-APCICT/ESCAP to organize two events in the month of November: 1) Second Academy Partners Meeting that will bring together stakeholders of APCICT's flagship ICTD training programme; and 2) Consultative Workshop to Strengthen ICTD Education in the Asia-Pacific region.
APCICT Welcomes Academy Partners to Second Annual Meeting on Flagship ICTD Programme
On 3-6 November, 2010, the Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN-APCICT/ESCAP), a regional institute of the ESCAP, will welcome thirty participants from twenty-one countries in the Asia-Pacific to Incheon, Republic of Korea, to discuss the status and future of the “Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders Programme” (Academy).
Participants of the Second Academy Partners Meeting, will examine the current state of the Academy, APCICT’s flagship ICT for development (ICTD) training and capacity building programme, in countries where it has been launched, discuss plans to roll-out the programme in other countries within the region, and deliberate upon strategies and frameworks to monitor, evaluate, communicate and promote the delivery of the Academy training.
The meeting will also serve as an important opportunity for Academy Partners to network and share important lessons and experiences about Academy workshops and the use of ICT to meet national and regional socio-economic development goals.
APCICT’s partners are at different stages of Academy roll-out, and therefore the meeting’s participants will come from countries that are preparing to launch the Academy as well as countries where the Academy has already been rolled-out. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have plans to launch the Academy in the coming year, while Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Samoa, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam have already rolled-out the Academy at the national level.
The Academy is a comprehensive ICTD curriculum that provides policymakers with the knowledge and skills to fully leverage opportunities presented by ICTs to achieve national development goals and bridge the digital divide. The Academy consists of eight stand-along, yet interlinked training modules covering a range of ICT for development topics. APCICT will launch two new Academy modules on ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change in the new year.
APCICT Holds Workshop to Strengthen ICTD Education in the Asia-Pacific
On 7-9 November, APCICT will welcome over seventy participants to a Consultative Workshop on “Turning Today’s Youth into Tomorrow’s ICTD Leaders” during the Asia Economic Community Forum (AECF) in Incheon, Republic of Korea. The workshop will engage government officials and academic administrators from twenty-nine countries to discuss the quality of teaching content on the use of Information and Communication Technology for socio-economic development (ICTD) in curricula of institutions of higher-learning in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Consultative Workshop is a preliminary step in APCICT’s “Strengthening ICTD Education in Institutions of Higher Learning” project, which aims to raise the awareness of the importance of ICTD education in tertiary education through advocacy to policymakers, governments and networks of relevant partners in the Asia-Pacific region.
In addition to creating consensus and outlining a plan to fill existing gaps in ICTD education, the workshop will also encourage participants to identify national focal points who will advocate at the national level for the need of a comprehensive ICTD learning regimen in tertiary education institutions.
Eighteen ASEAN exchange students will participate in the “Turning Today’s Youth into Tomorrow’s ICTD Leaders” workshop, nine of whom spent July and August in Incheon, as part of APCICT’s Young ICTD Leaders Programme.
The workshop is an official parallel event of AECF, which is a regional forum that brings together leaders from Asia and the world to explore the identity of Asia and discuss the future economic direction of the region.
