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A small team from ATiT spent the week of 20th April in Freetown, Sierra Leone, working with the Sierra Leone Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SLIEPA) to prepare for the creation of a content driven web site and intranet, including the necessary training to operate the website in the future.

This service will target both companies from within Sierra Leone as well as potential foreign investors and will be used to help drive the economy forward by identifying international markets for products from Sierra Leone as well as finding investors to work with companies in Sierra Leone.

The site will be built using DRUPAL as the Content Management System and will be available in June 2009.

The Second Virtual Dialogue in the Women's Dialogue series about women in political leadership took place on Wednesday 25 February involving more than 120 people in the participating sites in Jordan, Kenya, Ghana and Lithuania.This two hour dialogue featured an interview with Former President of Ireland (1990 - 1997) and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997 - 2002) Mary Robinson, followed by a discussion with a worldwide audience on closing the political gender gap and on ways to empower and prepare the next generation of women leaders. It attracted a wide variety of participants including several senior ranking ministerial representatives and policymakers. This included recently appointed Ghanaian Ministers,  Hon. Akua Sena Dansua , Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs and Hon. Juliana Azuma-Mensah Minister of Tourism.

Recommendations from this and the other Virtual Dialogues in the series will contribute to The International Colloquium for Women's Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace & Security Conference to be held on March 7 ­ 8 in Monrovia, Liberia. More information about the series is available from the Virtual Dialogues site http://www.womensdialogue.org. More information about the Colloquium is available from the Colloquium site http://www.womenscolloquium.org

Details of the Second Dialogue in the Women's Dialogue series about women in political leadership have been been announced. This two hour dialogue, taking place on February 25, 2009, will feature an interview with Former President of Ireland (1990 - 1997) and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997 - 2002) Mary Robinson, followed by a discussion with a worldwide audience on closing the political gender gap and on ways to empower and prepare the next generation of women leaders. It will link through videoconference participating live audiences in Jordan, Kenya, Lithuania and Ghana. Recommendations from this and the other Virtual Dialogues in the series will feed into a major international conference hosted by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - The International Colloquium for Women's Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace & Security Conference to be held on March 7 ­ 8 in Monrovia, Liberia.More information about the series is available from the Virtual Dialogues site http://www.womensdialogue.org. More information about the Colloquium is available from the Colloquium site http://www.womenscolloquium.org.

Watch the live stream on Wednesday 25 February 2009 at 11.30 - 13.30 EST US Eastern Time (check your time) on http://vcg01.worldbank.org/vc/. Please note that the conference will only appear at the top as soon as the conference starts. Meanwhile you can test your streaming by visiting one of the recorded public conferences mentioned on that same page.

The Women's Dialogue is a 3 part series of virtual dialogues starting on 22 January 2009 featuring live interviews and participation of current and former female Heads of State including Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and President Tarja Halonen interacting with a global audience of future leaders. The purpose of these dialogues is to produce recommendations and solutions on how to break down barriers to leadership which will be presented to the Women’s International Colloquium being held in Monrovia, Liberia March 7-8 2009.These dialogues are facilitated through the GDLN network of centres and are being produced by ATiT.

The video report of eLearning Africa is now available online. Featuring the voices and opinions of participants, speakers and exhibitors, this video provides an insight into why participants took part and what their concerns are for the future of eLearning on the African continent.

Those interviewed highlighted just some of the challenges faced including the lack of affordable access and described what it meant to be part of such a large and international gathering. ATiT staff collaborated with ICWE, the organisers of eLearning Africa in the production of this video. eLearning Africa 2009 takes place 27-29 May in Dakar, Senegal.

1449 Participants from 83 countries – almost 80% of whom were African - took part in the 3rd eLearning Africa Conference which took place in the Accra International Conference Centre from 28-30 May. Wednesday 28th of May saw a well attended pre-conference programme with many workshops and sessions, the conference exhibition also opened on Wednesday and attracted lots of visitors.

On Thursday, May 29th the event was officially opened by His Excellency Alhaji Aliu Mahama, the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana. Speakers in the Opening Plenary included The Hon Prof Dominic K. Fobih, Minister for Education, Science and Sports, Ghana and Prof Osei Darkwa, Ghana Telecom University College, Ghana, who talked about “eLearning, the New Educational Paradigm, and the Promise of Open and Distance Learning”. George Siemens, Lecturer at University of Manitoba Learning Technologies Centre, Canada, who is one of the most innovative thinkers in the field of eLearning presented his thoughts on “A Narrative of Learning for a World Without Boundaries”; Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director ICT, Science and Technology Division with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Ethiopia, gave a very interesting presentation about the UN-led practical strategies and programmes that will help lead Africa towards the realisation of digital inclusion: “Creating the Enabling Environment for eLearning in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities”; finally Kuno Jung, CEO of the Swiss eLearning technology provider Eduvision, outlined the educational vision of his company: “The Lost Footage of Back to the Future Part II: The Classrooms in 2015”.

Thursday's Opening Plenary marked the kick-off for two more days of sessions, discussions and debates around ICT-supported education and training in Africa. 315 speakers and chairpersons from 54 countries offered an abundance of opportunities for participants to learn, share and network with colleagues from all over the world. With 4 plenary sessions, 66 sessions in 11 parallel conference strands, 48 demonstrations and best practice examples, 15 Nnobia networking sessions, 14 pre-conference events and a number of exciting new features, eLearning Africa 2008 was an important landmark in pan-African capacity building for ICT-enhanced education and training.

See the conference website for more information: www.elearning-africa.com

ATiT are currently supporting the GDLN Secretariat at the World Bank Institute in Washington to determine the services offered by GDLN Affiliates all over the world. This research will contribute to the new web site being launched shortly for GDLN.  The website will feature GDLN impact stories and will help potential and current clients locate all GDLN Affiliates around the world and will display, for the first time in GDLN history, the different services offered by each and every affiliate.

ATiT staff recently supported the 2nd African ICT Best Practices Forum held in Ouagadougou,Burkina Faso from 21-23 April. The objective of the event, which took place over 3 days, was to provide a practical way for government officials from across Africa to share their own specific experiences and demonstrate practical examples of successful technology solutions in their respective countries, ultimately to replicate them elsewhere. This Forum attracted about 320 delegates from 39 countries represented, for more information, visit the Forum web site at http://www.africanictbestpractices.net

A recent article by Mathy Vanbuel carried in the eLearning Africa News Portal puts forward his views as to why ICTs are crucial for the Continent's development. It traces the evolution from small scale pilot projects in different countries to large-scale implementation actions, with the potential to provide a basis for sustainable change. It highlights the fact that Africa is leading the world in finding ways to utilise mobile phones, wireless networking, solar energy and reusable energy sources, but also points out the need to be realistic given the many demands on Africa's limited resources. The forthcoming eLearning Africa conference, http://www.elearning-africa.com taking place 28-30 May in Accra, Ghana offers an important opportunity to further this discussion and more specifically to focus on the importance of ICT in education and training within this perspective.

To read the full article, visit the eLearning Africa News Portal.

The final workshop for the Health Informatics Project BEANISH took place in Gabarone on 13-14 March and brought together representatives from health authorities, ministries and universities in Ethiopia, Malawi, Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Norway to review the progress of this EU supported project and to discuss plans for the future. The purpose of BEANISH is to strengthen and extend an existing Europe-Africa collaborative network to support the application and sharing of IST application development so as to support cooperation, learning and innovation in mutually beneficial ways. In its 3 year lifetime, the project has taken significant strides in the right direction and large scale take-up of the applications developed by the network are now taking place in several countries. For more information, visit the BEANISH web site.