The GEM workshop in Rep Dominicana has been fully confirmed. It will take place in Santo Domingo, September 17-21, sponsored by CIPAF (Research Centre for Women´s Action - Magaly Pineda), and the National Commission for the Information Society. The contact person here is Amparo Arango Echeverri, coordinator of the Technical Support Unit in the National Commission for the Information Society. The workshop will take place in the premises of INDOTEL (Telecommunications Institute of the Dominican Republic).

—Gobierno Digital) enunciada por Gil-García & Luna-Reyes (2003,2006):

—“Gobierno Electrónico es la selección, implementación y uso de tecnologías de información y comunicación en el gobierno para la provisión de servicios públicos, el mejoramiento de la efectividad gerencial, y la promoción de valores y mecanismos democráticos, así como el desarrollo de un marco regulatorio que facilite iniciativas que usan información de forma intensiva y fomente la sociedad del conocimiento.”

In July, over 40 ICT practitioners working in localisation, rural ICT projects, telecentres, and national policy advocacy efforts came together in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They attended the Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) Global Training Exchange to shed light on how to adapt this gender-sensitive tool to different cultural and technology contexts.

Angela Kuga Thas coordinates the implementation of GEM in four specific ICT settings: rural ICT projects, telecentres, software localisation efforts, and ICT policy initiatives at the national level. In Kuala Lumpur, Kuga Thas split the audience in four working groups, reflecting the ICT settings. “Stepping back from practical considerations to take a look at the highly conceptual framework was a hard task,” she admits.
Steeped in experience, participants wanted to get their hands dirty and start applying GEM to their realities. "Don't try to answer the questions, but think if the questions work for you, if the answers to these questions will increase the usability of GEM for you," she directed working groups. And off groups went, to intense debates in all corners.

When a mayor of a small town in the Argentinian pampas decided to have a telecentre at the local school, that would open to the public at school hours, she never thought that 65% of its users would be women over 35 years old. There were other Internet cafes in town, that offered connection in fast computers at reasonable fares, but they wouldn't attract women. What was the issue? What stopped women from accessing ICTs and surfing the Internet in those places?

Through the coordinative efforts of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology and the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the strong participation of the Philippine Community eCenter Network (PhilCeCNet), the National Strategic Planning Workshop for the Drafting of the Philippine Community eCenter (CeC) Roadmap for 2010 was successfully held last August 29-31, 2007 at the Boracay Regency Beach Resort and Convention Center in Malay, Aklan, Philippines.

The workshop gathered important telecenter stakeholders from the national and local government, private sector, international donor agencies, academe and non-government organizations together to map out the direction of the country’s Community e-Center Program. CICT Commissioners Angelo Timoteo Diaz de Rivera and Mon Ibrahim headed the list of participants to the workshop.