III Global Congress on Community Networking in the Digital Era

http://globalcn.org

III Global Congress on Community Networking in the Digital Era




Montreal, October, 7-12, 2002

Hilton Bonaventure Hotel
Universite du Quebec a Montreal
And various sites around the city


In October 2002, Montreal will host the third Global CN Congress on Community Networking. The Congress theme Empowering communities: Innovation, Proposals, Action is indicative of a process of knowledge transfer in which the world's community networks, their partners and the general public can all participate and from which they can derive benefit.

Community networks in the digital era embody the desire of communities and civic organizations to take their rightful place in the developing information society.

The international coalition known as GlobalCN was founded in Barcelona in November 2000 following the first international meeting of community networks, christened GlobalCN 2000, which brought together 700 delegates from all continents and included representatives from government, international institutions and the private sector.

Following GlobalCN 2001 (Buenos Aires), GlobalCN 2002 will take place at a strategic moment in the process of international coordination of world communication policies carried out in parallel by the G8 countries and the United Nations system. The process will culminate in 2003 and 2005 with the UN World Summit on the Information Society. http://www.itu.int/wsis

The GlobalCN coalition has been invited to participate in this international process. One of the main objectives of the Montreal 2002 Congress is to develop a common platform representing the positions of community networks in the run-up to the World Summit.

GlobalCN 2002 will also serve as a showcase for the wealth and diversity of Canadian expertise in connectivity and the grassroots use of technologies for community empowerment.
The World Forum on Community Networking (WFCN) is an international NGO created by the Canadian networks organizing the GlobalCN 2002 event.

An Online Resource and Networking Centre will be developed. In keeping with the principles of sustainable development, the goal is to make this resource an interactive, multilingual, user-friendly tool. Emphasizing original content and expert facilitators as much as technical features, the site will become a unique, indispensable and durable point of reference for community networks and their partners.