South Africa will be participating in the first "Internet Fiesta", jointly organised by the European Commission, the European information technology industry and organs of civil society, to be held from 19 to 21 March 1999.
The aim of the Fiesta, an umbrella mechanism for more than 5 000 events, will be to highlight the important contributions made by Internet applications, in improving the quality of living as well as promoting transnational contact and understanding.
The South African Mission to the European Union in Brussels explored the opportunities for South African participation in the Fiesta, as part of its efforts to strengthen SA-EU collaboration in information and communications technology. Two events have therefore been scheduled with the aim of highlighting the opportunities the Internet offers to strengthen and facilitate contact and cooperation between Europeans and South Africans.
The South African Mission and the CSIR's Centre for Information Society Development in Africa (CISDA) will on Friday 19 March at 11:00 (South African time) be organising an "Internet Dialogue" between European and South African participants, on the importance of the promotion and protection of human rights. Human rights have been chosen as theme to coincide with South Africa's national Human Rights Day on Sunday 21 March.
The "Internet Dialogue" will take place per a "virtual seminar room" application, which will permit the South African and European participants not only to follow the presentation, to be delivered by Mr Robert Nkuna of the South African Human Rights Commission, but also to actively participate in discussions. Participants from Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal have registered to participate in the Dialogue.
The "virtual seminar room" application is presently used with great success by the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Michigan for a joint post-graduate programme on "Globalisation and the Information Society". A lecture forming part of this programme will be held on Friday 19 March at 16:00 (South African time) in order to coincide with the Fiesta.
The launching of the "Global Teenager" programme, a joint initiative by SchoolNet (SA) and the International Institute for Communication and Development (based in The Hague) will also be covered on the Internet (http://www.iicd.org), as part of the Fiesta. This programme, which involves the linking of 13 secondary South African and Dutch schools through Internet-based applications, in order to promote cross-cultural contact and understanding, will be officially launched at the Grahamstown Science Festival on Friday 19 March.
Further information on the Fiesta and the South African events is available from the South African Mission in Brussels at:
samission@village.uunet.be or on the Internet at:
http://www.internet-fiesta.org
http://www.cisda.co.za
http://www.iicd.org
ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON BEHALF OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MISSION TO THE EUROPEAN UNION IN BRUSSELS
PRETORIA 19 MARCH 1999