Finalists Named in Global Competition for Contribution of Information Technology to Development - €100,000 Petersberg Prize to Be Awarded at Development Gateway Forum

Eight finalists have been chosen from a field of more than 200 nominees for the Development Gateway Foundations first-ever Petersberg Prize. The 100,000 euro Prize will recognize outstanding achievement in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve peoples lives in developing nations.

Washington DC (PRWEB) June 9, 2004 --- Eight finalists have been chosen from a field of more than 200 nominees for the Development Gateway Foundations first-ever Petersberg Prize. The 100,000 euro Prize will recognize outstanding achievement in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve peoples lives in developing nations.

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 Forums 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 attached).

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 Gateways 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 ICTs central role in development, with the Forum focusing on ICTs 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 Gateways 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 OKane & 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.