Teams of young people from around the world gathered in San Jose, Costa Rica, in August for the First International Power Users of ICT (information and communication technologies) Symposium. The event included student participants from Costa Rica, Latin America, Australia, the Netherlands, Nordic countries, and the Philippines. Participants, who interacted virtually with teams from Africa and Asia, demonstrated their digital skills with the goal of helping focus research on pressing questions and topics.
“We heard directly from these extraordinarily talented young people, who from a very young age have routinely used the Internet and multi-task with cell phones, text- and instant-messaging, video games, PDAs, iPods, and other technologies,” says Joyce Malyn-Smith, a strategic director in EDC’s Education, Employment, and Community Programs, a host of the Symposium. “Their knowledge and skills are leading to profound changes in the ways young people learn, solve problems, and approach tasks.” EDC held the event in collaboration with the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, in partnership with the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, and companies that included Microsoft, Adobe Systems, Inc., Intel, Macromedia, Inc., and Certiport, Inc. Business leaders took part in a roundtable session, organized by the FedEx Institute, focused on research questions to evaluate global power users and their impact on future work skills development and training.
Results of the Symposium and recommendations for long-term research will be presented at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, to be held in Tunis, November 16–18, 2005.
Originally published on September 1, 2005
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