UNITeS initiative receives award for university volunteering in ICT - December 2002

The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a volunteer initiative to help bridge the digital divide, today received a Global Junior Challenge 2002 award for its University Volunteer Network. This network places and supports university students in developing countries to support capacity-building activities in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for human development. UNITeS is managed by the Bonn-based United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV).

"What UNITeS pursues through its University Volunteer Network is to raise awareness and engage the University community around the world as a key social contributor in sharing knowledge and humanize globalization. Universities go hand in hand with the global principles of solidarity on which the UN is based," said Alexandra Haglund-Petitbo, Programme Specialist in the UNITeS team at UNV.

The Global Junior Challenge is an annual event of the City of Rome to recognize the leading role young people play in the emerging information society. This year, more than 430 projects from throughout the world were submitted for the Challenge, with winners chosen in four categories. All projects are using ICT for education and training of young people. Projects were submitted by public and private institutions, non-profit and youth associations, schools and universities, large and small companies and research centers throughout the world.

The award ceremony took place in the Campidoglio City Hall in the presence of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic, Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome and Tullio de Mauro, President of the Digital Youth Consortium. This year's Global Junior Challenge is organized by the City of Rome, and the Italian Ministries of Innovation and Science, and Education, Universities and Scientific Research. It is also sponsored by World Bank's Infodev programme as well as Oracle, Unisys and TIM from the private sector.

UNITeS and its Global Network of Universities initiative won in the category for "users up to 29 years old". University ICT volunteers, through UNITeS, have already served in Botswana, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Ecuador, Honduras, India, Jordan and Kosovo on a variety of capacity-building ICT projects. The common thread among UNITeS-collaborating universities is that they are interested in taking action to narrow the digital divide. Using the UNITeS mechanism, universities can involve qualified students, faculty and staff to productively contribute for ICT capacity-building needs expressed from developing countries, and at the same time offer a unique learning opportunity to them.

Through the UNITeS initiative, the UN Volunteers programme is taking an active role in the UN Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Task Force, which is "intended to lend a truly global dimension to the multitude of efforts to bridge the global digital divide, foster digital opportunity and thus firmly put ICT at the service of development for all". The Task Force's action plan focuses on the need for partnerships between leading training institutions and universities and community-level ICT for development programmes, and cites UNITeS as a key avenue for involvement of university volunteers by such organizations.

Read the UNITeS submission for the challenge, as well as submissions from others in this category, at: http://www.gjc.gioventudigitale.net/2002/en/.

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For more information about this news release, contact:
Manuel Acevedo, tel: (49 228) 815 2215