The Global Cities Dialogue is a worldwide network of cities interested in creating an information society free of digital divide, based on sustainable development. Its General Assembly is taking place this week in Lyon, France with attendance of the French President Mr. N. Sarkozy. Also known as The Lyon Conference for Digital Solidarity, this conference will host a large number of heads of state and government, as well as international organizations, NGO, companies and foundations.
This conference is a follow-up to the World Summits on the Information Society held in 2003 and 2005 in Geneva and Tunis, which gave rise to the creation of the Global Digital Solidarity Fund and the World Digital Solidarity Agency. Today, at a time when the digital gap is ceaselessly expanding on a world-wide level, the Lyon Conference will bring all the main individuals trying to bridge the digital divide together for a whole day’s work, so enabling concerted world action to be taken for providing better answers to the issues at stake in this key sector of development.
The main themes will be explored in the form of workshops:
- Universal Connectivity: Looking for ways to leverage new technologies to integrate towns or regions, especially those that are isolated.
- e-Health: with the increasing availability of reliable telecommunications, doctors are now able to expand the reach of their services and attend remote areas.
- e-Education: as the foundation for the digital revolution, the ability to reach a larger number of students through the proper use of new technologies has the potential to shape the future of emerging regions and level the ground of opportunities.
- Reuse and Recycling: one billion personal computers won’t just go away without harming the environment and the regions that end up receiving them at the end of their life cycle.
I find fascinating that cities are so much more agile in keeping up with current trends and organizing themselves around the topics that matter to them the most, devoting at times just a few people who being able to act on behalf of millions of people have plenty of power to change things. This conference may only be tackling four issues among an ocean of needs, but the ability of conference participants to effect change is likely very high. And considering the long list of cities that are members of the Global Cities Dialogue, you can expect change to happen somewhere near you.
I’ll keep reiterating this idea over and over as I’m convinced that the way to the future has a lot more to do with being a citizen (as in “city”) than having a nationality.
