Right now the EFAKP project team is looking for a small incubation grant for one year and this helps us initiating the project.

Is Sri Lanka on track to achieve the Education for All Goals (EFA) set out at the World Conference on EFA in Jomtien in 1990 and reaffirmed at the Dakar education forum in 2000? To what extent have Jomtien and Dakar influenced primary education policies in Sri Lanka? What lessons can the international community learn from Sri Lanka’s experience?
The research finds many resonances between Sri Lanka's five year plan and the Dakar criteria for national action plans, even though the development of the five year plan preceded the Dakar conference. The report also shows that:

Donors, UN agencies and international banks operating in Sri Lanka have been more enthusiastic than the Sri Lankan authorities about promoting EFA.
Sri Lanka, like many states, has had trouble preparing EFA country assessments due to mismatch between education ministry data and that required by the EFA Forum Secretariat at UNESCO HQ in Paris.
As the ministry of education has only recently become involved in early childhood care and development, there are a number of other state agencies involved and coordination is weak.
Sri Lanka’s educational planning involves a wide range of stakeholders: eight provincial plans were developed prior to and fed into the national primary education plan.
Wider lessons from the Sri Lankan experience highlight the importance of:

relating national EFA plans to education plans developed at the levels to which authority for planning and finance have been devolved
borrowing selectively from the ideas and experience of the international EFA community: EFA is most likely to be achieved when it has commitment from local educators, not providers of finance
accompanying national EFA plans with revised and detailed plans for curriculum developers, teacher educators and teachers
realising that countries like Sri Lanka with records of EFA achievement have much to contribute to, not just take from, the international knowledge base on EFA
choosing appropriate and local language(s) in the development, writing and dissemination of plans
seeing national EFA plans as a portfolio of complementary plans prepared by more than one ministry and not as a plan developed especially to meet the criteria set by international agencies.
More:http://www.id21.org/education/e1al1g1.html
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Pubs/files/educationforall_paper46.pdf

The virtual collaboratory can be using completely different tools - web based and non web based,but it depends on internet communications.Scientists are prone to using it for thier research work.Social enterprises now almost accustomed to implementing virtual collaboratory for thier project works.Online community as you see it also a type of virtual collaboratory and when I am using ryze.net business community tools its postive effects soon became apparent to me.
The obvious question is then,if it is so powerful,why not to use such communities for knowledge sharing in more effective project collaborations and mobilisation of resources.And I was researching to explore the real possibilities of doing it.
What are the pros? Many ofcourse.You can choose your own medium of communication,web to web,web to email and web to mobile and vice versa communication is possible.This is extremely important for people to allow them using multiple platforms to communicate.Then OSS are available to use.Not to mention the effects it can cast upon on the society.Cons are it requires very extensive effort from the part of implementors to keep it running.
My knowledge portal plans are quite simple:start it humbly and then grow it as big as it requires and deserves.

Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation
Implementing the WSIS Action Plan
A unique conference for policy-makers, ICT activists and action-oriented
private sector organizations

Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, 25-26 March 2004





Following the hectic pace and overwhelming volume of activities at WSIS
Geneva, it is important that organizations take time to reassess the vast
amount of outputs and project themes. The CTO conference will act as a
follow-up to WSIS, focusing on "Implementation and Best Practices".
Following a three-month gestation period, we should be able to make more
sense of WSIS outputs, by focusing on specific key topics in the relative
serenity of a comfortable resort on the outskirts of Nairobi. You will be
able to deliberate, plan and share common areas of interest. This event is
aimed at facilitating the journey to WSIS 2005 in a creative, constructive
way.



The conference will have the following objectives:



· Understanding and reviewing leading thinking and strategies on best
practices, which can be shared between key member groups. Review how other
stakeholders are going to approach similar goals and strategic objectives.

· How to develop action plans which cascade through the supply chain.

· Reviewing the role of stakeholder alliances between government, not for
profit organizations/NGOs and the private sector, reviewing key case studies
materials throughout the world, including a focus on procurement and the
supply chain.

· Uncover the challenges and opportunities of developing Private Finance
Initiatives.

· Assess how joint cross-border initiatives like skills and capacity
building can work. Is there a common roadmap to developing "e-citizen"
communities.

· Share common challenges on modernizing Government agendas in relation to
WSIS. Assess what external tools and resources exist which can support
stakeholders in this endeavour.

· How to enhance private sector investor commitment.



The programme will include the following sessions:



1.. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for Policy-Makers -
Ministers, deputy ministers and leading technocrats present latest policy
and project proposals. How can effective co-ordination be achieved across
all ministries involved in ICT implementation.


2.. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for Regulators -
Regulators and private sector operators share knowledge on best practices to
facilitate rapid roll-out of telecommunication services.


3.. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for Development
Partners - How can multilateral and bilateral institutions best respond to
the project and development opportunities currently multiplying in the
market?
4.. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for the Private
Sector: How can the private sector best respond to the lack of
communications infrastructure development, retarding Africa's participation
in the world economic system. The African Internet Service Providers
Association (AfrISPA) will lead this forum for private sector players to
develop a strategy for the development of affordable and efficient Internet
infrastructural development in Africa.


5.. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Role of Civil Society - NGOs,
church organizations, media, academia all have a vital role to play in
implementing the WSIS programme. How can diverse initiatives be effectives
co-ordinated in order to achieve optimum results?


6.. Financing the WSIS Action Plan: The Role of Private Financial
Institutions and the Capital Markets; leveraging state funding to mobilise
private sector investment


7.. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan across the Region: Understanding the
confluence of national and regional ICT projects and how they can best be
co-ordinated


Speaking Opportunities
Presentation proposals are invited, covering the topics outlined above.
Proposals should be sent to Sean Moroney, AITEC Africa
(sean@aitecafrica.com), including a brief outline and the presenter's CV
summary.



Sponsorship Opportunities

The CTO conference provides a unique opportunity to make a marketing impact
on leading policy-makers, regulators and government and private sector
decision-makers through the exclusive sponsorship opportunities available at
the conference. For details contact your AITEC representative.



Kenya National ICT Convention
The conference will coincide with the Kenya ICT National Convention over
22-26 March which is intended to develop a detailed consensus between
government, civil society and the private sector on the country's national
ICT policy. In addition, the Convention with showcase East African national
and regional ICT projects in order to attract donor support or private
sector investment, this conference is not limited to region or country.



The conference and the Convention will be opened with a combined plenary
session on the morning of 22 March. Other combined activities will be a
welcoming cocktail party on 22 March and a dinner on 23 March.



Safari Park Hotel provides a five-star residential conference facility with
a relaxed environment in a semi-bush setting (see www.safaripark-hotel.com).
AITEC Africa has been appointed by CTO to organise the conference. For
further details, contact Sean Moroney, +44-1480-495595; sean@aitecafrica.com

To register as a delegate log on to www.aitecafrica.com

_______________________________________
WSIS mailing list
WSIS@lists.sn.apc.org
http://lists.sn.apc.org/mailman/listinfo/wsis
_______________________________________________
Plenary mailing list
Plenary@wsis-cs.org
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary

Frankly speaking,and you will candidly admit we were desperately looking for a HRD person who shall be able to manage the HRD issues;but I am taken aback when Soma just decided to join our group and yes we are definitely progressing.
Hi Soma!

Dear VKC project members,
The VKC project is scrapped for the time being and it will be locally implemented, if at all,in the villages of West Bengal with my local individuals and NGO partners.It is understood that yout time and work commitment will not be conducive to the project progression in regard to this specific project.

I need your help in all regards in implementing the Education for All Knowledge Portal project and I hope you shall be able to direct your effort and time in achieving the goals of the project.In simpler terms,the project aims to assisting the societies achieving the six Dakar goals by 2015 (read more about Dakar goals at:http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/index.shtml) through making a global online community for EFA purpose.Our experiences and attachment with TakingITGlobal online commiunity will help us in this regard.

I want to build a project team for building the website EFAKP and it will be registered as an non profit organisation under relavant state and national level registration act.The project team shall ideally consist of 10 young people who for the initial months shall be able to exchange communication and do work virtually and when we shall be able to gather the required funding,work as a team in the office.



---

----
Your involvement:
Your involvement in this project depends on the following criteria:
1.Your intention:How much are you committed towards the project?
2.Your moral fibre:Are you morally strong and dedicated enough to be involved and devote yourself in a social enterprise development?
3.Your leadership capabilities:Are you a potential leader in your field of activity through your knowledge,experience and maturity?
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Your role:
You may understand that this project work is now in the stage of a virtual collaboration,and to make it materailised we need to exchange communication and information effectively.It is imperative that from now onwards,we will make a cohesive effort towards materialising the project.

----
Are you ready?
Then the obvious question is: do you think yourself a member of this project? If so,let me know.

---
Please include in your message the following details:
Your full name:
(as in passport or other certificates)
Full residential address(both visiting and postal)
Mobile number
Telephone number
Email adrress(yahoo and hotmail)

---
And if you are ready,join the following group:
http://groups.takingitglobal.org/efakp

remember it has the following members:
Atanu Garai
Varun Kumar Jain
Amar Gupta
Glory Mushinge
Michael Furdyk
Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala
Prof. Sucharita Gopal

right now going through to arrange the seminar,planned for wsf mumbai in kolkata,seems it would be nicely working out,though my buddies must have the time to attend this in thier hand.

This announcement is interesting:
PHP and Web Standards Conference - UK 2004
: PHP and Web Standards Conference - UK 2004 The PaWS Group is pleased to announce the first ever UK PHP and Web Standards Conference. PaWS Con will cover using PHP and Web Standards separately and in conjunction with each other. The conference will take place from February 20th - 24th 2004.
http://www.php.net/
http://www.pawscon.com/

music is my passion and this website www.musicmayday.org is certainly catching the vibe.

This post of Chris in the youthful media group is really interesting.Read the article here:
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_1/huffaker/
It tells how young people can become adaptive to old age story telling habits in this digital age.

I am of the impression that developed world are stepping back from funding further ICT based initiatives in the South after much hip hop in the Geneva.Though there are proclamations made for further grant,but as I am getting news many of the funding afencies are not advancing thier funding any more.
Do you know of any specific instances where such grants have been declined or stopped for live projects?Till now I have learnt almost five instances and all of them are happening with Swiss government!Though not sure,whether these decisions are Swiss authorities' alone but sometimes they create rippling effect.
When foundations and charities have started creating special portfolios for grantmaking for ICT related project grants,such instances are really bad.And this is particulalry true for some regions like South Asia,West Africa,West Asia because there are lots of innovations going on and it is not the perfect time for the social,business and civil societies could stand on thier own.
The market here is far from satuarated and investors could find ample opportunity to fund innoative ideas and ventures.Most of the ICT prjects are still dwelling upon on average 3/4 years old technologies and innovations being made in laboratories and social enterprises lab must be given the opportunity to be tested in ground.

Well,even myself could not imagine that ICTs could be helpful in practicality in resolving the conflict in SriLanka and bringing peace there.But with the Info-Share project,as I have browsed through it,it seems to be happening.InfoShare project is aimed "To engender and sustain a holistic and integrated peacebuilding process in Sri Lanka" and initially it seems to me that this project is really innovative and futurz oriented.Personally I came to know about Rudy while browsing through the MTF website and also getting his emails from the Education and Youth forum.And when I met him in Delhi,it was very cool to discover a very good friend in him.Check Info-Share out!!!

I have just received a mail from Sunil and he is interested to be present as speaker in the WSF Youth Forum.I am negotiating with Fred as well.So it seems that we could have a well organised discussion and networking there.

Well,right now,I am going to communicate with other TIG members how to best organie the workshop and involve them strategically!!!

The Education and Youth forum of OneWorld South Asia's LearningChannel at http://www.dgroups.org/groups/education
runs discssuion on education and youth.Join!!!

I am really enjoying this networking process with gamuts of people from so many countries,from Europe,Africa,America,Australia..of variety of professions -scientists,industrialists,businesman..and of all ages.it is really exciting to travel across places to meet new faces and talk and exchange perspectives.often it becomes apparent that same ideas were shared by many of us,but a bold initiative was lacking.
and i must concrtize my thoughts and the overall process should be time based and compact...
lets see