Daniel Pimienta
from Foundation Networks & Development (FUNREDES)
as nominee for the 2003 World Technology Awards

London, San Francisco (April 10, 2003) - The World Technology Network (WTN) announced today that Daniel Pimienta, President of FUNREDES, has been selected as a nominee for the Ethics category of this year's World Technology Awards, being held in association with Nasdaq, Accenture, Microsoft, Genencor International, Dupont Textiles and Interiors, TIME magazine, Technology Review magazine, Science magazine, and Business 2.0 magazine.

Winners will be announced on June 25, 2003, in San Francisco, at the World Technology Awards gala ceremony at the conclusion of the two-day World Technology Summit. The World Technology Awards honour individuals and corporations from twenty technology-related sectors viewed by their peers as being the most innovative and doing the work of the greatest likely long-term significance. Award categories range from biotechnology, space and energy through to ethics, design and entertainment.

Daniel Pimienta's quote:

" I understand that this nomination is an acknowledgment of the pioneer work accomplished with FUNREDES, since 1988, in the innovative use of networks and the Internet for development, especially the activity of facilitating the MISTICA project around a virtual community acting as a "think-net" on ICT social impact. I hope this nomination will help us give visibility to FUNREDES’ mission to protect language and culture diversity and create new forms of democracy in cyberspace and pursue our mission as a civil society organization working in the field (Latin America and the Caribbean) and focusing innovation in social processes mediated by ICT. I want to associate my colleagues and peers from FUNREDES and MISTICA to this unexpected honour."

Nominees for the 2003 World Technology Awards were identified based on an intensive, global process in which current WTN members (primarily winners and finalists of previous Awards cycles) made their nominations based on who they think are most innovative and impactful, within their particular field. A small selection of those WTN members nominating this year include:

Mr. Osamu Chisaki Executive Director - Japan Bioindustry Association
Dr. Craig Venter President - The Center for the Advancement of Genomics
Dr. Desh Deshpande Chairman - Sycamore Networks
Dr. George Gilder Chairman - Gilder Technology Group
Mr. Tim Berners-Lee Director - World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Sir Christopher Frayling Rector & Vice Provost - Royal College of Art
Mr. Gary Shapiro - President - Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)
Dr. Achim Steiner Director General - IUCN - The World Conservation Union
Mr. Georges Kutukdjian Executive Secretary - World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge & Technology (COMEST)
Mr. Tim Draper - Founder and Managing Director - Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Mr. Bert Keely Architect, Tablet PC – Microsoft
Mr. Michael Dell - Chairman & CEO - Dell Computer Corporaion
Mr. Robert Davies - CEO - International Business Leaders Forum
Prof. Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School
Mr. Mark Viken Sr. VP Marketing - Sony Electronics
Colin Hicks - Director General - British National Space Centre (BNSC)

James P. Clark, founder and Chairman of the World Technology Network, added:

" The World Technology Awards program is not only a very inspiring way to identify and honor the most innovative people and organizations in the technology world, but it also is a truly disciplined way for the WTN membership to identify those who will formally join them as part of our global community. I wish Mr. Pimienta every continued success in his activity and am confident that Funredes’ work will continue to help create our future and change our world. Daniel Pimienta's
contribution in the field of ICT for Development has been outstanding, and the nomination
is just acknowledgement of that fact".

Finalists and winners of the 2003 World Technology Awards will be revealed at the Awards ceremony taking place on the evening of Wednesda, June 25^th at the historic Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco – with the various category winners and finalists being automatically enrolled into the World Technology Network membership.

This year’s World Technology Awards ceremony will provide the closing event to the 2003 World Technology Summit taking place on in San Francisco on the 24^th and 25^th of July. For more information on the World Technology Network, World Technology Awards and World Technology Summit, please visit their website, www.wtn.net

The World Technology Network is a London-headquartered organization that was created to "encourage serendipity" - happy accidents - amongst those individuals and companies deemed by their peers to be the most innovative in the technology world. WTN's areas of interest range from IT and communications to biotech, energy, materials, space, as well as related fields such as finance, marketing, policy, law, design, and ethics. Each year, WTN members are brought together through an ongoing global series of Roundtable Dinners, Chapter Meetings and other events. WTN also publishes "World Technology Intelligence", a bi-monthly magazine about what is imminent, possible, and important in the technology world, written largely by its own members - the people driving the most significant innovations. Central events in the WTN calendar include the annual World Technology Summit and World Technology Awards - the culmination of a global judging program through which new members are nominated and selected and by which the network grows and is refreshed.

About Daniel Pimienta

Daniel Pimienta is the head of FUNREDES (http://funredes.org) a civil society organization working in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) and performing research-action for new form of participative democracy within the framework of the "Society of Shared Knowledges", the way the MISTICA group of academics and activists (http://funredes.org/mistica) prefers to address the so called "Information Society".

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