Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media Labs have plans to create and distribute hand-cranked, affordable laptop computers. This site features a poll regarding the possibility, and more.

The United Nations' Millenium Goals resolve to connect everyone, globally, to communications and information technologies. This task could be vastly complex and it is only one of many.

http://www.worldsummit2005.org/
A Review from the Heinrich Boell Foundation Wsis CS web site [ HBF = an exemplary contributor to CS activities]
Broadcast Media in the Information Society?
World Electronic Media Forum

14 November 2005. One day before the start of the WSIS summit, the World Electronic Media Forum has opened its doors. The Forum, which takes place within the summit compound and as an official parallel event, is a two-day conference to highlight the important role of traditional media in the information society.

For TV and radio broadcasters, and more generally for all traditional media organizations, the WSIS has not always been a happy process. Conceived primarily as a summit on ‚new’ technologies and the Internet, the WSIS documents have side-lined the role of traditional media channels as well as of media content. Media organizations have played a prominent role in the ever-present debates on freedom of expression, and the Media Caucus – the main civil society-based space on media issues – has become a prominent advocate calling for establishing and deepening this right. Yet the wider issues around the role of media have been largely neglected.

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/70466/

Journalists, others at World Summit on the Information Society attacked by authorities

Country/Topic: Tunisia
Date: 14 November 2005
Source: ARTICLE 19
Person(s):
Target(s): Internet/website(s) , journalist(s) , photographer(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): assaulted , other , seized
Urgency: Threat

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - The following press release has been distributed by ARTICLE 19 on behalf of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Civil Society's Media Caucus:

Civil Society's Media Caucus at WSIS expresses its indignation over a series of incidents in which Tunisian authorities have hampered the freedom of expression of journalists and their freedom of association as well as that of others attending the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.

by IFEX - The IFEX Tunisia MOnitoring Group
http://campaigns.ifex.org/tmg/blocking.html
[ Internet Blocking and Human Rights Violations in Tunisia]

Tunisian President Ben Ali has expressed time and again his commitment to the development of the Internet while websites are being blocked and young people exploring the Web harassed, arrested, tortured and sentenced to heavy prison terms following unfair trials.

Greg Hughes , an associate with the eCommons/agora project, has just been named our new Wsis C2C managing editor. An experienced journalist and netizen based in Toronto, with interests in freedom of expression, human rights and diverse media issues, Greg succeeds Amelia Bryne Potter, whom we thank sincerely for her stellar voluntary efforts on behalf of the Canadian civil society community.

Relevant to WSIS, Indonesian efforts to webify are short, but working. Even with 1,000 new nodes being installed each month, there is not enough web access for the nation's 255 M people. Government committee-approved school networks could be the foundation on which access for the greater public is built, says Onno W. Purbo, author and teacher.
Speaking at U of T's Munk Centre Wednesday, May 29, he related some anecdotes of homegrown web construction and legal plights in Indonesia. He showed odd-angled photos of home-made antennas and a cable running through his ceiling to connect a server.

Diversité linguistique et culturelle
http://francais.mcgill.ca/bulletins/?ItemID=15582
Communautique

Source: Traduction [bulletins]
12 mai 2005

Nicole Nepton

Source : Communautique
Montréal, 29 avril 2005

Lors d'une journée d'étude organisée par le Carrefour mondial de l'internet citoyen et Communautique, les participants se sont penchés sur les enjeux de la 2e phase du Sommet mondial sur la société de l'information (Smsi) et ont tenté de formuler des propositions qui alimenteront une démarche d'appropriation citoyenne de ces enjeux. Ces préoccupations et aspirations face à la « société de l'information » en devenir seront communiquées à la conférence pancanadienne qui se tiendra à Winnipeg en mai sous l'égide de la Commission canadienne pour l'UNESCO.