More and more young women and girls are highlighting the importance of access and safety in the digital world. Marking International Girls in ICT Day, on Thursday, UN agencies have issued a call to action to ensure equal access to digital learning opportunities.
It’s “high time” the international community decided how best to embrace the potential benefits of digital technology - and protect against its unexpected negative consequences - a senior official from a panel of tech experts appointed by UN chief António Guterres said on Thursday.
In an interview with UN News, Ambassador Amandeep Gill told Daniel Johnson that The High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation’s mandate to be truly inclusive, would be key to the recommendations it must deliver in nine months.
Making information and communication technology (ICT) readily available for vulnerable countries and harnessing it’s potential to help tackle a raft of ills – from disaster risk reduction to reaching ‘zero hunger’ – will be among the issues on the agenda at an annual United Nations information forum that kicked off Monday in Geneva.
An innovative project that has given former child soldiers access to education in Sudan shows the value of embracing technology for sustainable development, the UN said on Thursday.
According to the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, these vulnerable youngsters have been able to follow the country’s national curriculum using solar-powered electronic tablets.
The initiative is being rolled out to displaced communities in Jordan, Lebanon and Greece, as UNICEF’s Sally Burnheim told Daniel Johnson.
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Terrorist groups are exploiting all the new social media platforms and communication technologies to expand and fund their activities, according to a representative from the UN’s Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED).
Delphine Schantz, one of CTED’s legal officers stated that internet sites and “crowdfunding” platforms are being misused to buy weapons online and raise funds for other terrorist purposes.
Violence against women, the worldwide scourge
A global response is needed to stop extremism on the internet and in social media, the head of the UN’s anti-terrorism body (UNCTED) has urged.
Extremist groups have been using information and communications technologies (ICT) to spread propaganda, recruit, generate funds, share training materials and engage in the illicit weapons trade.
Some of the most popular social networking services are said to be devising strategies to counter the online activities of these groups.
Investing in training is critical to expand the tech sector in Africa, according to Rwanda’s Minister of Youth and ICT (information and communications technologies).
Jean Philbert Nsengimana said his government has supported tech entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by providing a “hub” where their ideas can be turned into businesses.
A bid to improve the lives of billions of people in cities by using Information Communication Technology (ICT) to maximum effect is under way at the UN.
The focus on so-called “smart cities” involves 56 cities in Europe, Central Asia and North America.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can only be achieved with the help of widespread information and communication technology, or ICT.
That’s according to Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the United States Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.
Ambassador Sepulveda is chairman of the 2016 World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS) that will take place this week in Geneva.