1. Implementing the WSIS Action Plan Safari Park Hotel Nairobi, Kenya 25-26 March 2004 Rodwyn Grewan CEO SchoolNet SA

2. Overview of Presentation Basic Issues ICTs & Skills Models for Development The Way Ahead

3. ICT Sector (knowledge society context) ICT Enablement of society IT Industry PRIVATE PUBLIC DEVELOPMENT Manufacturing Financial Retail Research Training Home office National Provincial Local Parastatals Education Research Universal service Community centres Schools Innovation Pilots Hardware Software Telecommunications Telkom Cell Telephony Private Networks Satellite & Broadcasting Vans Supply industry Internet & Intranets Professional services ICT Innovation

4. ICTs & Skills Developing the Skills for the Knowledge Society depends on preparing an innovative path from information to knowledge. This requires the integration of Literacy, Broad Based Literacy, E-literacy and ICT skills to meet actual needs. The value of every human mind. –Skills: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, FET, ABET Public, Private, Formal, Informal –ICTs: Awareness Literacy Professionals Infrastructure / Access

5. LiteracyICT Access Communication Stage Writing, print Computer-mediated communication Economic EraIndustrial capitalism Informational capitalism Physical ArtifactBooks, magazines, newspapers, journals Computer Organization of Content Novels, short stories, essays, articles, reports, poems, forms Web sites, e-mail, instant messages Receptive skillsReading Reading + multimedia interpretation, searching, navigating Productive skills Writing Writing + multimedia authoring and publishing DividesA great literacy divide?A digital divide? Comparing Literacy and ICT Access Mark Warschauer is Assistant Professor of Education and of Information & Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide, to be published by MIT Press in fall 2002.

6. Models for Development UNDP Model of positive feedback cycle: technology-knowledge-innovation-economic development. –UNIDO, Strategic Compact, Finland… Literacy, Broad Based Literacy, Information Literacy, E-literacy ICT skills development are points of development on a continuum of skills required for the knowledge society.

7. Way Ahead ICTs with SOUL –Castells & Himanen: “current trends in the expansion of the information society worldwide point toward the increasing importance of the social uses of ICTs”. Opportunity for Africa: apply ICTs to satisfy needs (i.e., creating local information societies): –Accelerate sustainable development more widely; –Stimulate indigenous ICT entrepreneurs/industry Locally develop content to satisfying needs of the majority: –Language and culture sensitive (voice) –Visualisation techniques for places, people, events –Interactivity to investigate how things dynamically work

8. Thank You Rodwyn Grewan CEO rod@schoolnet.org.za