Dear colleagues
Please find the attached information about the
workshop on literacy in participatory cultures
that will be organized by the dynamic coalition
on media education, the Council of Europe and the Cyberpeace initiative
The challenges of becoming literate to foster
participatory cultures Workshop 139 Monday 16
November, 14:30?16:00 Room 5: Sphinx
Organised by the Dynamic coalition on media
education, Cyber Peace Initiative, UNDP Egypt's
ICT Trust Fund, and the Council of Europe
Millions of people are using the Internet
throughout the world today. The Internet has an
enormous potential for improving the quality of
life of its users in many different ways.
Promotion of Internet literacy is vital for
societies that depend on digital information. A
number of projects are aiming to promote
Internet literacy among the population,
especially for children. But what are the risks
of using the Internet without having previously
acquired the appropriate skills and knowledge?
How can individuals be trained to use the
Internet? What should the role of different
stakeholders be? The workshop will search for answers to these questions.
Agenda Co-moderators: Divina Frau-Meigs,
Dynamic coalition on media education, France
Samy Tayie, Professor of Public Relations and
Advertising, Faculty of Mass Communication, Cairo University, Egypt
1. What happens when individuals use the
Internet/new media without skills and competences ? regional perspectives
- Ibrahim Saleh, Officer of the Academic
Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS)
* Sheba Mohammed, Policy Analyst, Trinidad and Tobago
* - Malte Spitz, European Youth Forum /
Representatives of Net Aman Youth, Cyber Peace Initiative
2. What different stakeholders can do to empower individuals?
- Andrew McIntosh, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
* Badia Y Cutchet, Member of the European Parliament
* - Hosein Badran, Regional Chief Technology
Officer (CTO) and Distinguished Systems
Architect, Cisco Systems International, Egypt
* - Yasser Kazem, Director of the E-Learning
Competence Center (ELCC) of the Ministry of
Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) Egypt
* - Ahmed Hefnawy, Converging Services
Manager, National Telecom Regulatory Authority
(NTRA), Egypt - Malte Spitz, European Youth
Forum / Representatives of Net Aman Youth, Cyber Peace Initiative
3. Open dialogue, including with reference to the following questions:
- How can individual consumers be media
savvy/smart in the Internet age? - How can media
literacy build trust? - What skills do
individuals need in order to deal with and contribute content to the Internet?
4. Wrap-up, conclusions, next steps
- Nevine Tewfik, Director, Cyber Peace Initiative, Egypt -
* Divina Frau-Meigs, Dynamic coalition on media education
* - Lee Hibbard, Council of Europe
Contact: Lee Hibbard:
<(lee.hibbard /at/ coe.htm)>(lee.hibbard /at/ coe.int)
<mailto:(lee.hibbard /at/ coe.int)> / Divina
Frau-Meigs: <(meigs /at/ wanadoo.htm)>(meigs /at/ wanadoo.fr)
<mailto:(meigs /at/ wanadoo.fr)> /Nevine Tewfik:
<(ntewfik /at/ mcit.gov.htm)>(ntewfik /at/ mcit.gov.eg) * * *
The Council of Europe is an international
political organisation, which brings together
over 800 million citizens from 47 countries,
making up an entire democratic continent. In its
work based on intergovernmental cooperation, the
Council of Europe seeks to promote democracy,
the rule of law and human rights. Its permanent
headquarters are in Strasbourg, France
Dynamic Coalition on Media Education One of the
multi-stakeholder platforms that have emerged as
a follow up of the World Summit on Information
Society. It serves as a diagnostic and
evaluation tool at the global level and devises
media and information literacy assessment tools,
proposes benchmarking frameworks, offers public policy solutions, etc.
Cyber Peace Initiative From it?s launch in 2007,
Cyber-Peace aims to promote the "Peace Culture?,
as defined by the United Nations, among others
by improving communications across cultural and
geographical barriers through content
development, platform creativity, exploring in
depth ICT as a channel for economic
opportunities and innovation for youth, and by
engaging youth in securing the Internet as the
medium through which objectives will be
achieved. The Initiative rests on capitalizing
on the creative spirit of youth to innovate
constantly-changing Internet based content and
IT platforms that should match the pace of
socio-political changes and developments in real life.
UNDP Egypt?s ICT Trust Fund Egypt Information
and Communication Technology Trust Fund (ICT-TF)
was jointly established by the Ministry of
Communications and Information Technology (MCIT)
and the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) in January 2002. The ICT-TF is a
mechanism that aims to investigate the different
means by which ICTs can enrich the livelihood of
Egyptian citizens, as well as to foster
socio-economic development by creating
public-private partnerships to support the use of ICTs.
