APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize

The APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize recognises initiatives that are making it easy for people to start using free and open source software (FOSS). The prize has been established to honor Chris Nicol, a long time FOSS advocate and activist who for many years worked with APC.

Gender Research in Africa into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE)

GRACE, a project from APC-Africa-Women starting in early 2005, aims to explore the ways in which women in Africa use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to empower themselves, the external, structural barriers as well as the internal factors which prevent them from using ICTs to their advantage, and the strategies they employ to overcome these barriers.

GenderIT.org - gender and ICT policy

APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) launched the new gender and ICT policy monitor GenderIT.org in April 2005. GenderIT.org is a practical tool for women's organisations and policy-makers so that ICT policy meets womens' needs and does not infringe on their rights. As a clearing house on gender and ICT policy issues, GenderIT.org is an open platform for ANY gender and ICT advocate to publish her/his resources and papers, and to register in the 'Who's who in policy' directory of key actors.

APC-Creative Commons Awareness-Raising in Southern Africa

APC ran a short awareness-raising project in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to inform potential partners about the role of Creative Commons as an alternative to traditional copyright on the internet. Running from September 2004 to May 2005, the main aims of the project were to identify key organisations and individuals in SADC that may be interested in using Creative Commons to licence their content, and providing them with the necessary information to initiate such activities. Workshops were held in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Accra, with a regional workshop held in Johannesburg at the end of May 2005 in collaboration with APC member, SANGONeT.

Capacity Building for Community Wireless Connectivity in Africa

The APC’s Community Wireless Connectivity project is looking to connect communities who don’t yet have internet access in Africa by skilling them to build their own wireless networks. The project covers the development of training materials and workshops that will be localised for different environmental, regulatory, language and climatic conditions. With four regional workshops in Africa in 2005, we’ll be training up to 100 possible future trainers and producing materials in English, French and Arabic. APC is planning to also move the project into Latin America and the Asia-Pacific.

Catalysing access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA): Policy advocacy

APC is the lead implementer of the CATIA project's component on African-led advocacy for ICT policy reform. The overall developmental objective of the component is to achieve increased access to affordable ICTs in Africa, particularly for the poor and those in rural under-serviced areas. It aims to stimulate and support accelerated ICT policy and regulatory reform in seven African countries through supporting existing initiatives and developing the capacity of informed advocacy groups (and individuals) from the private sector, consumer groups and civil society, and the media.

To celebrate APC's 10th anniversary, in 2000, APC launched the Betinho Prize -- to commemorate the inspirational life and work of Herbet de Souza (Betinho), a visionary Brazilian social activist and exemplary communicator. Betinho spent his life tackling inequity affecting street children, senior citizens and landless peasants, with the goal of addressing the structural roots of Brazilian poverty. In 1981, Betinho founded the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), which embraced new technologies and gave rise to one of APC's founding member networks. Betinho's work has been an inspiration in APC's own efforts towards a more democratic information society.

The $7500 US prize is open to non-profit organisations, community-based groups, coalitions, working groups or social movements anywhere in the world that have successfully used ICTs as an essential ingredient in their development work. The prize will next be offered in 2005.

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Since 1990, Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has been working with all sectors of civil society to harness information and communication technologies (ICTs) in ways that support development and social justice. APC created the Hafkin Prize because we believe it is essential to encourage and recognise outstanding examples of African initiatives in ICTs for development.

Dr. Nancy J. Hafkin has been a pioneer and innovator in the area of networking, development information, and electronic communications in Africa, over the course of a twenty-three year career, mostly working with the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa. Nancy's devotion to African networking and her confidence in the African continent and its human resources have helped build Africa's ICT framework through partnerships with governmental, nongovernmental and development institutions.

The competition for the USD$7,500.00 Hafkin prize is open to civil society organisations, government institutions, educational organisations, community-based groups, networks, social movements or individuals anywhere in Africa that have successfully initiated and implemented projects that involve the use of ICTs for development and social justice. The prize will next be offered in late 2004.

In 1997, as a contribution to the Global Knowledge conference held in Toronto, the APC WNSP began an evaluation of its own research activities to contribute to the development of a generic ICT Audit Framework tool, which had been designed to learn more about the role and impact of ICTs on development projects. It became clear that practitioners and planners need more comprehensive tools and criteria to assist in considering the diversities of women's experiences and analyses, as well as women's strategic and practical needs, when evaluating the role and use of ICTs in development projects from a gender perspective. Such tools would encourage the implementation of stronger, more informed women's networking initiatives. The APC Lessons Learned project is building a practical and thorough gender methodology for ICT project planners, whether they are donors, ICT policymakers or women's organisations.

The Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) for ICT initiatives and ICT evaluation is an innovative gender analysis tool produced by APC-WNSP for practitioners who share a commitment to gender equality and women's empowerment in ICTs. Field-testing and refining GEM with about 25 projects got underway in a series of regional activities in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and North America in 2002. GEM is now also available in Spanish and Portuguese. GEM in Spanish

National ICT Policy Sites

In early 2004, ten APC members have created national ICT policy portal websites in their own countries in a joint initiative coordinated by APC. The portals which are all uniquely adapted to address each country's particular situation all use free software -APC ActionApps- that allows content-sharing in different languages and between multiple information databases hosted in different parts of the world.

The portals have been set up by APC members -organisations who work with ICTs for sustainable development, and social and environmental justice- locally in Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, the UK and Uruguay. The sites will be used in a variety of ways.

ITrainOnline

APC, Bellanet, IICD, IISD, INASP and OneWorld have joined forces to create ItrainOnline, a technology resource centre for people who want to learn how to use the internet effectively for social justice and sustainable development.

ItrainOnline (in English, French, Spanish and other languages)

Multimedia Training Kit

More and more people are seeing the creative potential of linking the internet to more traditional communication technologies, particularly radio and television.

The Multimedia Training Kit (MMTK) provides trainers in telecentres, community media organisations, and the development sector with a structured set of materials to help make that jump between new and traditional media or train in a new skill area.

The materials - on a range of multimedia areas like ‘presenting on radio’ and ‘writing for the web’ as well as topics such as ‘cooperative problem solving’- all follow a standard format and so can be used as interchangeable building blocks from which trainers can build up face-to-face training appropriate for their different contexts.

So, a trainer running a workshop on information skills for a women's organisation could choose components from the “Searching the Internet” unit and the “Violence Against Women” module, and combine them into a single workshop kit.

The Mission-Driven Business Planning Toolkit was developed in response to the growing tension faced by our members as they sought to balance sustainable business practice with their missions. The Toolkit collects the creative ideas, expertise and experiences of APC members and our private sector partners and includes articles, issue-specific presentations and ready-to-use forms that address the various business planning processes for mission-driven organizations.