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FUNREDES : WHAT'S NEW? : 1998
News from 1998
News of Our Projects
1998-11-01
Running an NGO being what it is (see, in Spanish, the information relative to our budget, in the version we released last January), we have, since the beginning of year, chosen to give the priority to projects likely to provide us with some funds - the answer to various calls for proposals being as important as the realization of financed projects. The achievements are:
the realization and hosting on our server of the site dedicated to the International Conference on the water which was held in Beirut (Lebanon) from June 18 to June 20. The conference was devoted to the international law and comparative law on international watercourses, and to the education for a culture of water sharing and protection
a new and improved version of the study on the Latin languages and cultures on the Internet; this was a cooperative work, done with the Agence de la Francophonie and the Latin Union
within the framework of CARIBCAD, a project financed by the European Union, we have realized and we still maintain a public Web site, as well as a private one; the opening and the management of the mailing lists allowing a good communication flow among the various partners have also been part of our work
the realization of a new paper brochure to present Funredes
the training to the methods of the Internet and the information society of the members of the organization Mujer y Salud, an NGO which is devoted to women health in the countryside
As far as the individuals of Funredes are concerned, and not to the team as a whole, Daniel Pimienta worked as a consultant for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Zimbabwe. His mission there, during the month of March, dealed with the regulation on the Internet. A workshop was organized as well, on the basis of the Internet seminars of Funredes.
Also, we have been pleased to host on our server the Web site corresponding to the final project of a former trainee of Funredes, a young computer student of the UASD, Wilson Taveras. With his project team, he created this summer a site devoted to Mao, his birthplace, located in the Northern part of the country.
As far as the formulated projects are concerned:
the answer to the call for abstracts, then to the call for proposals by the AUPELF for the French-speaking virtual University: in August, Funredes presented two projects, BDD-CARIOCI (a Web-based referential database of the Caribbean and Indian Ocean on the Internet) and CASAC (Campus, amphitheatre and virtual classroom: how to recreate a campus on the Internet by the means of mailing lists)
the response to the call for proposals by the Agence de la Francophonie: in July, three projects were formulated and presented to the Francophone Funds for the Infohighways: REFIC (Reinforcement of the French-speaking space on the noncommercial Caribbean Internet, in cooperation with enda caribe), MAFIL (Automatic measurement of the French-speaking space on the Internet - language), to make a follow-up study concerning the Latin languages on the Internet, and MAFIC (Automatic measurement of the French-speaking space on the Internet - culture), for the creation of a scientific method of measurement of Latin cultures on the net.
We have recently signed three projects:
the main one, financed jointly by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Foundation Charles Léopold Mayer for the Progress of Humanity (FPH), a two year project tackling methodology and the social impact of NTIC in Latin America.
the realization and the hosting of the site of the Embassy of France in Dominican Republic: the online release is planned at the beginning of 1999.
the setting of the internal communication (mailing lists, associated Website, etc.) among the virtual community CIVICUS in Latin America.
News of Our International Conferences
1998-11-01
Funredes has kept on ensuring its role of research, and its members took part in several conferences and seminars, remotely or physically; among the later ones:
April 15: meeting organized in Paris by the AUPELF, a follow-up of the call for abstracts made for the French-speaking virtual University. Funredes was represented by Daniel Pimienta.
April 22-24: Visionarios conference in Caracas (Venezuela): Daniel Pimienta presented the intermediate results of the study languages and cultures on the Internet.
May 11-13 and September 1-4: Caribcad meetings, respectively in Newcastle (Great Britain) and Santiago (Dominican Republic). Funredes was represented by Catherine Dhaussy.
September 11-12: regional assembly of CIVICUS in Buenos Aires (Argentina). On the behalf of Funredes, Daniel Pimienta made a proposal to organize the internal communication.
October 1-3: conference Info-Ethics in Monte Carlo. Daniel Pimienta made a communication entitled "Is there a space in the Internet for non-American languages and cultures? Case study: the Latin world".
It is also necessary to note here the participation of Amauris Espinal in the workshop WALC98, organized in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) as a pre-activity of INET'98. This training was made possible thanks to a grant by the Internet Society, who organized this workshop.
Hurricane George
1998-11-01
On September 22, the hurricane known as "George" hit the Dominican Republic. The office of Funredes was not too much damaged, but the entire country has suffered a lot. Funredes sent to several electronic conferences a message to give to each one the possibility to contribute directly in order to help the victims.
Direct Aid to the Victims of Hurricane George
Hopes for the Near Future
1998-11-01
Are we going, once again, to build plans which fail, and never going to present you a "new Funredes"? Not at all! We have taken a series of good resolutions, to which we will try to stick:
availability of the personnel implied in the new release of the site: Catherine Dhaussy for the architecture and the structure, Francisco McDugall for the graphic work, both were spared the other heavy tasks, and will then be able, from now on, to devote their time to this Web site. They will be punctually helped by their colleagues, who are less especially assigned to the site.
a realistic schedule in several progressive stages:
a new "what's up in Funredes" in French, Spanish, and English
an update of the documents which are definitely out of date, and additions of missing documents
a minimal improvement of the presentation of the documents, spelling included, and a basic harmonization
the implementation of a graphic model and a modification of the esthetics of the pages
the reorganization of the site, its architecture, the way to navigate, etc.
and so forth...
In comparison with the previous workplan, we have brought several innovations:
better availability of the people directly implied in the process
no "freezing" of the site: it will keep on developing during the duration of the works, with an update which, on the first stage of the process, will be done at least on a weekly basis
successive steps and stages: we work on a... site open to the public, and everyone will be able to observe the improvements, week after week
abandonment of the long-term plans: the objectives do exist for the middle and the long terms, but we have identified the first necessities and defined the first workplan for a three month period
We thus hope to be able to present you a first "new version" of the site at the end of December. The work on the very structure should begin in January 1999.
Thank you to follow us in our process. Please feel free to send to us your comments on the site, its improvements, its possible problems, etc., directly at Catherine Dhaussy: .
Updates on Our Website
1998-10-31
Converting all the documents of the Gopher into HTML format has been a very heavy work, which was patiently carried out by Amauris Espinal. It still needs to be finalized, but you may already wish to have a look at it, at: http://funredes.org/gopher/.
As far as the other parts of the workplan are concerned, the first internal documents have been produced, but the working process has not been followed. The main two reasons why that happened are: some more or less predictable changes of personnel, and other projects which have reached various degrees of realization.
Updating Our Human Resources
1998-10-31
Comparing with last January, three people remain in Funredes :
Amauris Espinal, the young Dominican who was then a trainee from the UASD and who is today the person in charge of the computer department
Catherine Dhaussy, who keeps on working as a project manager
Daniel Pimienta, still president and director of Funredes
These people had to leave:
Gustavo Cápiro, whose contract as a cooperation intern expired at the end of March
Marc Cassuto, for personal reasons
Various Dominican trainees have worked since January in Funredes, as well as a young French MBA student, Éric Quintane, who came late July to work as a voluntary during one month and half. He designed a new brochure for our NGO.
Finally, two youngsters arrived some time ago:
Keysi Guerrero, a student from the UASD, who shares her activities between a position of secretary and the computer department. Working part-time in July and August, this Dominican young lady has been employed full-time since the beginning of September.
Francisco McDugall, a Canadian intern whose speciality is Web designing. He arrived in September for 6 months, and he is a ressource from the IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development).
New Publications
1998-10-31
The role of our NGO is not only to act directly, but also to do some research and to publish; Daniel Pimienta has published this year an article entitled "Efficient Multilingual Electronic Conferences for Congress Follow-up, Virtual University, and participative democraty", for the International Congress on Water held in Beirut (Lebanon) from June 18 to June 20.
Within another framework of publication, we have sent this year three proposals for the conference INET'99 organized by the Internet Society, on various topics:
needs for users training
the management of multilingual electronic conferences, and remote participation
FUNREDES Member Elected to the Head of the Board of ISOC-France
1998-01-11
In May, Catherine Dhaussy was elected to the Board of Trustees of the French Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-France). She was voted vice-president of the association during the first meeting.
A Summary of Funredes' Projects for the Year, 1997
1998-01-02
Between June and september 1997, FUNREDES conducted a study for AUPELF about the state of the art of the Virtual University on LA&C in the perspective of the francophone virtual university. The result of the study is confidential but some overview has been published (in French) in the Hanoi francophone conference.
The CARIBCAD project was launched on September 1st 1997.
Catherine Dhaussy and Daniel Pimienta participated in the following meetings:
Sept. 11-12 - University of Delft
Nov. 14-15 - Santo Domingo
and organized early September the first global project meeting.
We are maintaining a constant activity of support to the Haitian Network REHRED and have been involved in several missions in Port au Prince. We have updated with additional information the page relative to the (in French) wrong doing with the Top Level Domain of Haiti.
FUNREDES has offered a SUN Spark Server II to REHRED (with permission of SUN Corp. which had it donated to FUNREDES) to built its own Internet server.
We have made some consulting for the Internet activities of the Soros Foundation in Haiti.
FUNREDES organized for the Autonomuous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) a Workshop on computers and networks on November 6 and 7. See the program (in Spanish).
We are contributing to the project INFO@SOUTH of a magazine about the IT in the South.
We keep as main priorities for FUNREDES the following projects and are trying to find financial supports and/or partners:
EMEC
CARITIN
PLACE OF FRENCH IN THE INTERNET
Funredes Participates in a Long List of 1997 International Conferences
1998-01-01
April 9-11 97. Colloque de Beyrouth (Autoroutes de l'Information, un défi pour le Monde arabe, la Méditerranée et la Francophonie). Daniel Pimienta participated in the track Network and technologies, with the following contribution: "Internet et l'aide au développement en Amérique Latine et Caraïbes: l'expérience de FUNREDES" which has been published (in French) in Revue Universités de l'AUPELF, numéro spécial, February 1997.
June 22-25 1997. Daniel Pimienta participated in the Global Knowledge Conference held in Toronto, Knowledge for development in the Information Age - a Global Conversation organized by World Bank.
September 23-26, Budapest. Second World Assembly of CIVICUS. FUNREDES joined CIVICUS as member and participated with a contribution on: "New ways of funding NGOs".
October 1997. INFOETHICS: Pablo Liendo and Daniel Pimienta are participating in this Unesco launched virtual conference where a selected group of experts discuss the theme of Ethics on information. This is the follow-up of the Monte-Carlo's First International Congress on Ethical, Legal, and Societal Aspects of Digital Information of 10-12 March 1997
October 25-26 1997. Hanoï - Colloque Initiatives 97: Inforoutes et technologies, une chance pour le développement économique et social de l'aire francophone Asie du sud-est, Chine, Océan indien, Pacifique. Daniel Pimienta participated with the following contributions:
Relations de profit mutuel entre les opérateurs de télécommunications et les réseaux de la recherche: un atout pour le développement des pays du sud.
La médiathèque universelle et l'Université virtuelle francophone prepared and presented by Didier Oillo.
and as Chairman of the Regulation Track
November 6-7, Santo Domingo. Workshop on computers and networks organized by FUNREDES for the Autonomuous University of Santo Domingo (UASD). See the program (in Spanish only).
December 1-6 1997, São Paulo. Daniel Pimienta participated in the International Meeting for the Alliance for a Responsible and United World.
December 11-12 1997, Montevideo. IDRC Panconsultation. Daniel Pimienta participated both in the virtual conference and the physical conference and contributed with the presentation "A provocative grassroot view of the role of international organizations in the field of information technologies and recommendations for a drastical change"
January 1998. ISOC France, Journée Autrans 98 Catherine Dhaussy participated remotely with the following contribution (in French): http://www.isoc.asso.fr/AUTRANS98/funredes.htm
Updates to Our Website
1998-01-01
The financial information of FUNREDES has been updated (in Spanish).
FUNREDES received a small grant from ISOC France in support for his studies about the place of French language and culture in the Internet
STATISTICS
In December we cross the 10,000 hits per month. The main visitors are from: .NET, .COM, .EDU.,.DO, .FR, .ORG., .VE, .ES. .AR, .MX, .DE, NL, .UK. .PE
The average figures are now of:
300 hits per day,
1 Megabyte data retrieved per day
MOVING: We moved from Casa de Francia to a new office:
Moises Garcia #20, Gazcue, Santo Domingo... but we keep PO BOX 2972
We are hosting the web services of various NGO's: enda caribe, Caribbean ecotourism conference hypermail, kalalu and palau. You may also want to visit the site of the International Conference on Water, which will be held in Beirut (Lebanon) from June 18th to June 20th, 1998.
Welcome to the New Members of the Funredes Team
1997-12-31
Several persons have joined the team of FUNREDES, marking the revival of its operational structure (which had declined in 96/97 as the consequence
of the lack of funding).
Catherine Dhaussy arrived early
November. She is French, has worked in the Internet since 1993, at the
University of Minnesota Twin Cities,
later on at the University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign. She was the chief editor of Frogmag
and worked last year at Nomade. She
will stay with us for at least 2 years, and is currently Project manager for the CARIBCAD and EMEC projects, also in charge of coordinating the content of our Web site.
Marc Cassuto is a young French engineer studying at Ireste
and doing his 6 month engineer training period with us. He will support
the CARIBCAD project in all the technical aspects related to Work Flow Management, and groupware, will develop required Java applications and will insure technological watch on relevant matters. We may become mutually interested to extend the assignment.
Gustavo Capiro is a Cuban cooperant working for enda caribe thanks to a cooperation from CID.
He will contribute to FUNREDES activities as system administrator and webmaster until March 98 at least. He worked previously as a technician of the Cuban
network.
Amauris Espinal is a young Dominican student from Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) doing a computer training period in FUNREDES.
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