Finalists Named in Global Competition for Contribution of Information Technology to Development

The Prize will be awarded at the Development Gateway Forum 2004 on June 27
to 28 in Petersberg/Bonn, Germany. At the Forum, 80 leaders from around the
world will gather to advance the use of ICT for development. Speaking on the
Forum's theme, "Local Solutions for Effective Development," will be Rwanda
President Paul Kagame, Bulgaria Deputy Prime Minister Lydia Shouleva, World
Bank Group President James D. Wolfensohn, and others.
Finalists for the Petersberg Prize, who come from four world regions, have
demonstrated the impact new technologies can have on development in various
fields of endeavor. Innovative uses of information technology have helped
improve the livelihoods of poor farmers in Mali and India, dramatically
expanded access to communication and information in rural areas of Bangladesh
and Hungary, and created a whole new economic sector in India. Petersberg
Prize finalists are being recognized for these and other accomplishments (see
below).
Prize jurors recently met in Egypt to review the nominations, at the
headquarters of the Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering
Center (RITSEC), a leading technology development center in the Arab region,
and at the Library of Alexandria. "We are delighted that this distinguished
committee chose to come to Egypt to conduct its important deliberations and
work on the contributions that these technologies can make for development,"
said Egyptian Prime Minister H.E. Dr. Atef Ebeid.
The finalists' stories, along with other noteworthy achievements
identified in the nominations, will be shared on the Development Gateway's
global portal of knowledge for development
(www.developmentgateway.org/prize), to help advance understanding of
the finalists' work and of the contribution of ICT to development.
The Prize and Forum both underscore ICT's central role in development,
with the Forum focusing on ICT's benefits in three specific areas: improving
government transparency and efficiency, sharing information for more effective
management of development initiatives, and increasing the capacity of
individuals and institutions to solve persistent issues of poverty.
The Forum will produce the Petersberg Declaration, a set of recommended
actions in these key areas. It will take place at the Petersberg conference
center, where the Prize was launched at the Development Gateway's last Forum.
The Forum is being sponsored again this year by Deutsche Telekom AG and
the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Sponsoring the Prize are Deutsche
Telekom and Microsoft.
The panel of Prize jurors is led by Jorge Quiroga, former President of
Bolivia and Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars. Other members include Vinton Cerf (USA), Senior Vice President
of Technology Strategy, MCI; Vallampadugai Arunachalam (India), Distinguished
Service Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University;
Hisham El-Sherif (Egypt), Chairman and CEO of IT Ventures and founder of Nile
Online; Miriam Meckel (Germany), Undersecretary for Europe, International
Affairs and Media of North Rhine-Westphalia; Wendy Millin (South Africa),
Partnership Manager of the "i-community" initiative, Hewlett-Packard; and Mary
O'Kane (Australia), Executive Chairman, Mary O'Kane & Associates Pty. Ltd.,
and former Vice-Chancellor and President of Adelaide University. Carlos A.
Primo Braga (Brazil), Senior Adviser, International Trade Department, the
World Bank, is adviser to the jurors.