I must admit, I am hopelessly in love with the television program “CSI” (Crime Scene Investigators) and its spin-off “CSI:Miami.” The show is just the perfect equation of nerdiness, mystery, and sex appeal that’s impossible to resist. Why do I love it so? you ask. The reasons are simple: Really Hot Nerds: The show features…
Category: Information Society
Googling the UN Document Server
The United Nations has added another search function to their two existing “simple search” and “advanced search” functions already on their Official Document System, and you get one guess where they bought it. For those who haven’t been following the news, earlier this year the UN publicly released their online archive of documents — including…
Cramming into the Kram for the WSIS
Francis Muguet of the Reseau de Connaisance et Societe de l’Information (France) sends out to other WSIS folks detailed information on the arrangements for the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis this November. He notes that “150 heads of state” are slated to attend, including President Bush. In addition, he warns that all…
The reluctant web developer
When you are known as the “techie guy” and you have little patience for complaining, you end up getting volunteered to do stuff that you really aren’t qualified for. Case-in-point, the web-based community calendar I am developing for NGOs at the United Nations. Not something I would have ever imagined coming across my desk, and…
Tax Day
Well its Tax Day, which was virtually painless this year since I did all of my filing and payments online. This year all of my tax activities were done on the web using Turbo Tax online and the IRS’s online payment system. There’s many other aspects of e-government that have yet to be fully realized…
Digital Solidarity Fund launched, cell phones for all!
Yesterday in Geneva the Digital Solidarity Fund was launched, with the support of 120 towns and cities, as well as France, Switzerland, Algeria, Marocco, Senegal, to bring the benefits of the information revolution to the developing world. Meanwhile, debate continues online about the digital divide and market-led solutions. The Digital Solidarity Fund the brainchild of…
More on ICT Global Alliance
Doing some more thinking on the concept of a “Global Alliance for ICT Policy Development,” which will be discussed next week by the UN ICT Task Force in Ireland. The real issue is: how does one create a body to ensure that governments integrate ICTs into their development agendas and that the private sector and…
Simputer is a failure (AP)
The AP has a story purporting that the Simputer project has largely failed in its goals to bring computers to the rural poor in India. The article notes that many local governments prefer to accept donations of computer equipment from Microsoft and other multinational hardware vendors rather than pay for new technology. It’s tough to…
My talk at DPI NGO Briefing on WSIS
The following are my remarks to a bunch of non-governmental organization representatives last week organized by the UN Department of Public Information. These are my talking notes so there will probably be some questionable English in there, for which I apologize. My goal for the next few minutes is to bring you up to speed…
My talk at DPI NGO Briefing on WSIS
The following are my remarks to a bunch of non-governmental organization representatives last week organized by the UN Department of Public Information. These are my talking notes so there will probably be some questionable English in there, for which I apologize. My goal for the next few minutes is to bring you up to speed…